


my heart is still (remembering)

by PhantomFlutist



Series: Error!AU [1]
Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - Error (Music Video), Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Panic Attacks, Slow Build, lots of swearing, references to using robots as sex slaves?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-24 13:08:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 33
Words: 71,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6154732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomFlutist/pseuds/PhantomFlutist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s not a hero, and he’s not a spy. Really, he’s just a mechanic who nearly went crazy and got in over his head in order to cope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm worried, because I don't like posting things that aren't finished. But I'm making a promise to do my absolute best with this. Feel free to yell at me if I don't update at least once a month. This fic actually spawned around Error era, and is sort of vaguely based on the mv? You'll probably see what I mean when you read it. Please enjoy!

The lab is quiet. Here he is surrounded by computers and spare parts, and he’s free to do what he likes as long as he meets his deadlines. There’s a weird, metallic taste to the air when he has the equipment running for too long, but he’s gotten used to that just like he’s gotten used to the silence. It’s not so bad, really, his job.

Though sometimes he gets lost in thought, and forgets about the machines. _Shit, those parts aren’t supposed to turn that way._ He presses the emergency stop, cursing at the software. He keeps asking for an upgrade, but IT is swamped with yet _another_ equipment overhaul for the higher-ups and everyone else is left to fend for themselves.

“Damn machine,” he growls at it, kicking the main console lightly as he gets up to check the bot it was working on. The arm is fucked up; he’s going to have to remove it manually and start over, which will take way more time than he has.

_“Damn it, Hongbin, this is your last chance. Get us something we can use by the end of the week or pack your bags. We don’t have room for mechanics who don’t actually make anything.”_

Hongbin does make things; they’re just…not quite what the company is looking for, apparently. He hasn’t submitted a successful bot since Model E, which was one he personally hadn’t been happy with. Its face was all wrong. Now it looks like he’s going to have to scrap Model K too, which sucks because he actually kind of liked this one. It gives off an innocent vibe, he thinks. Older women would have liked it as a household helper. It would be kind to them and sing them to sleep when they missed their husbands. He was going to give it a good voice.

Now he has to start over again. Sighing deeply, he hits the release button and catches the useless hunk of metal as the magnets keeping it in place deactivate. He grunts when it lands on him; the damn thing is _heavy._

He drops it in the pile of rejects (there are more bots of his there than the company has actually sold in the past year) and goes back to his computer terminal. He has other plans in there, of course, and he can probably make at least one of them work. But in order to make a functioning bot in—he glances at the revolving calendar in the corner of one of the screens—three days he’s going to need working software.

Time to call IT. He’ll probably get hung up on again, but if he’s going to get fired he should at least try everything he can think of to do about it first.

A few quick taps on a screen and he’s connected, soft 23rd century jazz playing in his ear as he waits for someone to answer.

When they do it’s with a gruff, deep, “Hello?”

Hongbin startles—last he knew, most of the IT experts were women. “Um, this is IT, isn’t it?” he asks, just to be sure. It would be just his luck to misdial and end up calling the CEO or someone instead.

The person on the other end grunts what might be an affirmative and then there’s a bit of yelling in the background. Hongbin knew that IT was busy, but he didn’t realize it was that chaotic right now. “Yeah, it is. What do you need?”

Hongbin takes a moment to rub the spot between his eyebrows before answering. He needs to get his earpiece looked at; it keeps giving him headaches. “Look, I’ve been requesting a software update for like six months. I _need_ it to do my job, which I’m not going to have after this week unless I can get these _damn_ machines to do what I tell them.”

More yelling. The guy on the other line tells everyone else to be quiet because he’s on a damn phone call, damn it, and then he tells Hongbin, “Man, I wish I could help you, I really do. But we’ve had like four major server meltdowns in the last three days and the department head threatened to fire all of us if we don’t figure out what’s causing it.”

 _That sucks,_ Hongbin thinks. But he’s also going to lose his job, so he figures it’s still fair of him to ask, “Can you at least send me the software? I’m an engineer; I know how to do an install.”

“You’re funny,” the guy replies, to Hongbin’s confusion. “You know how many engineers have said they could handle their own installs and then managed to delete their entire hard drive?” He sighs, and then there’s the familiar sound of rapid typing. “But it’s not like I’m getting anywhere up here. It’s not fair for both of us to lose our jobs just because I suck at mine. Fine, I’ll be right there.”

“ _Thank you,_ ” Hongbin breathes just before the line goes dead. He feels like crying.

\---

The guy who shows up is surprisingly close to how Hongbin pictured him, though he has to admit he’d expected an outfit that was a little more badass than well-fitting black jeans and a soft sweater. The 21st century military-style haircut is on point, though, as well as the jagged metallic studs in his ears and the amount of eyeliner he’s slathered on himself.

“Hey,” the guy says, “I’m Wonshik. Let’s get this program on your computer, yeah?” He brandishes a data stick in Hongbin’s direction and Hongbin can only nod and step out of the way so Wonshik can get to his computer.

Wonshik is efficient, and has Hongbin’s files backed up and the program installing in half the time it would have taken him to do it himself. When the computer is safely doing its thing Wonshik twirls around in the chair to stare at Hongbin for an uncomfortably long time, ending with him muttering, “Damn you’re hot.”

Hongbin feels his face flaming all the way down to his neck and curls into himself self-consciously. _Why do people always say that? Quick, change the subject._ “So um,” he begins eloquently, pretending he didn’t hear Wonshik’s comment, “why did you have to come all the way down here? Usually they just do my installs remotely.”

Wonshik snorts and then startles at a sudden ding from the computer, getting up to look at something on the back of Hongbin’s monitor. It looks like he’s checking cables or something, but Hongbin isn’t sure. “Server crashes, remember?” he waves something (some sort of screwdriver, possibly, Hongbin can’t really see it) over his shoulder in a dismissive gesture. “Last thing I needed was to be halfway through your install and have everything die on me again.”

Hongbin nods, and then realizes that Wonshik isn’t looking at him, so that was kind of pointless. “Right,” he says instead. “That makes sense.”

“Plus,” Wonshik continues as if Hongbin hadn’t spoken, “all the ladies in the department keep tittering about this mechanic downstairs who’s _absolutely dreamy._ ” He turns around this time to wink at Hongbin, who feels the blush creeping down his chest. Thank god he is wearing clothes.

Which spurs all sorts of other mental images that he would do just fine without, thank you.

Hongbin steps forward, intent on getting Wonshik out of his lab before he actually dies of embarrassment. “Look, um, I think I’ve probably got it from here, so if you need to head back up….”

Wonshik shakes his head, turning to study Hongbin with that unsettling gaze again. “Actually, I’d rather not go back up to the crazy house just yet. Anyway, wanna explain this?” He holds up a little bit of…scrap metal? Is he serious? That stuff is literally all over this place, Hongbin’s machines are constantly spitting it out. He’s gotten beaned in the head a couple of times because he wasn’t paying attention.

“Uh, it’s scrap?” he says, hoping that his expression accurately depicts how crazy he thinks Wonshik is.

Wonshik pushes off the edge of the desk where he’d been leaning and gets closer so that Hongbin can properly see what he’s holding. “It’s a bot’s data card, and it’s damaged. What was it doing plugged into your console?” he asks. His mouth twitches down, his eyes still glued to Hongbin’s face.

 _Shit._ Hongbin licks lips which are suddenly very dry, and responds, “You know, that’s a good question, which has a very good answer, except that I have no fucking idea what that answer is.”

Wonshik’s eyebrow lifts impressively slowly until it reaches nearly the middle of his forehead. “You have no idea?”

Hongbin shakes his head quickly, and then has to stop because of a sudden headache. “Not at all,” he insists, staring into Wonshik’s eyes and feeling oddly uncomfortable.

“Well,” Wonshik says, taking Hongbin’s hand (Hongbin has a mini heart attack) and pressing the card into it, “Be more careful about what shit you plug into your machine. I bet you half a year’s pay that that’s what was fucking with the server. Damaged data cards tend to tamper with any system they’re connected to because they can’t tell the difference between a computer and their body.”

Hongbin grits his teeth but manages to get out, “I knew that. I build the damn things. I probably just forgot it was plugged in, okay?”

Wonshik nods. “Honest mistake,” he agrees. He moves to leave and Hongbin breathes a sigh of relief, but he pauses in the doorway to make squinty eyes at Hongbin and to warn him, “Just make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Hongbin nods mutely and watches him go, clutching the card so tightly it’s probably leaving marks in his hand. This is why he doesn’t interact with people.

\---

The fucking machinery is finally doing its job, and Hongbin has to admit that Model L is going to be pretty fantastic. His commission for this one is going to be at least three times as high as normal. He’ll get to keep on living for a few more months. _Which is good,_ he thinks, feeling his forearm delicately. It’s starting to give him trouble, and he should probably look into that, but until this bot is done he just doesn’t have the energy to worry about anything else.

Speaking of energy, a glance at the clock (oh wait, the calendar) tells him that he hasn’t slept in going on four days. He should probably take a nap or something.

He gets up and stretches stiff muscles, looking over his computer screens one last time. “I swear to god,” he tells the machines seriously, “if I come back to find that you’ve fucked this one up too, I will dismantle and scrap every last one of you.”

Only the soft whirring of the motors and the flash and grind of metal answer him, but he likes to think that they understand each other.

\---

_They come while he’s sleeping. Her screaming is what wakes him, high and desperate and so afraid. When he gets to the door they’ve already got her, holding her back as she lunges forward in a desperate attempt to reach him._

_“Please don’t do this. She hasn’t done anything wrong! Please!”_

_His begging falls on deaf ears, and then her eyes go dark and he knows: he won’t be seeing her again._

\---

What Hongbin wakes up to, a scant few hours later, is an insistent dinging in an otherwise heavy silence. He’s familiar with this particular ding, though. It means his new bot is finally, _finally_ done.

He sits up and stretches, scratchy blankets falling to his waist. When was the last time he actually went home? Several long moments of thought fail to recollect it, other than a vague notion that there wasn’t any unspoiled food in his apartment the last time he’d been there. He thinks it might have been three weeks, or possibly four. He wonders if his rent is due.

The cot he sleeps on when he stays at the lab is uncomfortable at best and downright painful on bad nights. But it’s easier to stay here when he has a project he’s working on, rather than spend the half hour on the monorail that it takes to get home. Besides, his postage-stamp-sized apartment isn’t much better than the lab, and is less lived-in to boot.

Model L is gorgeous—almost too gorgeous, if he’s honest with himself. Hongbin takes pride in the fact that his bots are always terribly lifelike, besides the metallic eyes, which glow when the bots are activated. He works hard, meticulously designing every detail, down to the very last strand of hair.

He snaps his fingers in front of the bot’s face and watches its blink reflex. It’s slow, but there, like it just can’t be bothered to react the way he wants it to. If Hongbin didn’t know better, he’d think its personality chip had already been installed. But every piece of machinery acts a little differently. He has enough experience to know that.

He frames the bot’s face with his hands to feel the give of its artificial flesh, and runs his fingers through its hair. The fringe hanging slightly over one eye is artful, he thinks. His supervisor might have other things to say. _Still, it’s constructed well,_ he observes, sliding his hands down its neck and to its shoulders to feel the joints there, tapping the insides of its elbows to watch it lift its arms.

It’s cold in the lab, but the bot’s skin does not break out in goosebumps like a human’s would. Bot flesh is a highly sophisticated silicone blend, not made for useless things like sensing the cold. The bot will know the temperature so that it can best serve its future master by offering a coat or some warm tea or a hot bath. But such a physical representation of that sense is impractical.

Its ribs are in the proper places, protecting the vital machinery that makes it function. And when Hongbin releases it from the electro-magnets and it steps off the platform, he walks around it to see that all the joints in its back are properly placed as well. _Thank fuck, the equipment actually did its fucking job for once,_ Hongbin thinks, running his hands thoughtfully down the bot’s legs and checking its knees and ankles.

Everything seems to be in order, which he’s grateful for. He needs to do a few last systems checks and then he can call his boss and let him know that he has a product for him. He wonders if the boss will cry when he tells him.

He walks back to the bank of computers and sits down, tapping the screens to open various diagnostic programs. The sooner he gets this done, the sooner he has reassurance that he’s not fired. “Speak,” he orders the bot absently. He doesn’t really need to listen very hard to the speech test. It’s the same thing every time: bot states serial number and Model designation, then the company of origin and its creator’s name. Basic stuff, which Hongbin has heard a dozen times with every successful bot he’s made.

_“My name is Leo.”_

Hongbin’s head snaps up so quickly he’s surprised he doesn’t break his neck. The soft, high voice coming out of the bot is not at all what he programmed into the chip, he’s almost sure of it.

_“I was once a man.”_

“Stop,” Hongbin says. That’s usually all it takes to get a bot to stop talking. A speech test shouldn’t continue if the tester doesn’t want it to.

_“I was taken.”_

“Emergency stop,” Hongbin says again. This has never happened before. It’s a fucking bot, it’s not a person. It’s never _been_ a person, so why is it…?

A single tear runs down the bot’s cheek, which is impossible because _bots can’t cry._ Its voice dropped to a whisper, it says, _“Please help me.”_

After that it falls silent, but Hongbin can’t stop staring at it for a very long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And, you all probably hate me now. I'm sorry! I would promise there are nice things in the future but there really...aren't, at least not for a long time. I'm planning for a happy ending, at least? And there should be fairly regular updates (I'm hoping once a week, at least until I run out of pre-written work) so if it's been a while, feel free to message me on here or harass me on [tumblr.](http://phantomflutist.tumblr.com/)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...chapter two. This is only two scenes, which means things are starting to happen. Hopefully you're not disappointed with the direction this goes in, and if you are, well...sorry. Please enjoy!

It’s sitting in the corner _watching him._ Hongbin has never had a bot without a personality chip follow his every movement so closely. They’re docile and don’t move on their own because they _don’t know how._ But Leo is watching him putter around his lab, picking up pieces to finish Model K by hand. And damn it, he wasn’t supposed to start calling it Leo, but it just sort of happened.  
  
Maybe it’s a fluke, some issue with the new software. He won’t let the machines touch Model K, just to be sure. He hasn’t made a bot by hand since he was hired by the company, but he still knows how and he’s pretty determined right now.  
  
He glances at Leo. Its expressions are still very bot-like, and it sits eerily still. Hongbin _made_ that. He watched it be assembled from metal parts and computer chips. There is literally no organic matter in it. So how did it talk on its own? How did it cry, or did he imagine that bit? Maybe he doesn’t sleep enough, and he’s having delusions.  
  
Maybe it’s because he—no, that wouldn’t happen. He’s been careful, has taken it slow. There’s no way that that could be the reason.  
  
Model K was nearly finished when the machines broke it, fortunately. Hongbin just has to fix the twisted, mangled arm and he should be good to go. Of course, it’s not covered in artificial skin right now, but that can be fixed later, after he’s confirmed that the bot functions correctly.  
  
The arm isn’t salvageable. He’ll have to remove the whole thing at the shoulder and start over, which is going to take a while. Sighing, he sits down with a bucket of parts and a tiny welder and starts piecing things together. Not all of the joins are going to be as gorgeous as the machines make them, but they’ll be functional and mostly unnoticeable underneath the bot’s skin. It’ll be good enough.  
  
The pressure of a hand on his shoulder causes Hongbin to jerk, snapping a fragile pin and making an entire finger fall off the damned hand. Breathing hard, he looks up expecting Leo to be staring at him. Instead, it’s Wonshik, his eyebrows raised and a barely-concealed smile on his face.  
  
“Fuck, you scared me,” Hongbin says, setting aside his work and turning fully to face Wonshik.  
  
Wonshik chuckles, his eyebrows still raised comically. “I’ve been calling your name for the last five minutes,” he says.  
  
Hongbin hadn’t even been aware that Wonshik knew his name, but he doesn’t mention that. “Did you need something?”  
  
Wonshik shrugs and plops himself down in the rolling chair at Hongbin’s computer terminal, a few feet away. He glides across the floor slightly and stops his momentum with a toe to the floor before he can manage to run into the desk. “Not really,” he says, picking up something off the desk and toying with it.   
  
Hongbin realizes that it’s the broken data card from yesterday. _Great, that’s just what I need,_ he thinks. He should have thrown the damn thing out when he had the chance. But he couldn’t, not when…never mind. “So why are you here, then?”  
  
“Maybe I just wanted to see your pretty face again.” Wonshik winks at him, and Hongbin feels like crawling into a hole to die. Seriously, people are way too preoccupied with his looks.  
  
Hongbin sighs and rubs his tired eyes. “Look,” he says, “I’m sure you’re very nice, but I really just don’t have time for this right now. I have work to do.”  
  
There’s a note of disbelief in Wonshik’s voice when he says, “Right, work.” He nods at the table behind Hongbin, who feels embarrassed for some reason. It’s just an arm, it’s not like there’s anything bad about what he’s doing. “Work like building a bot by hand when I just updated your software?”  
  
Hongbin shrugs, tries to calm his quickly beating heart and slow his breathing so that he can remain casual when he replies. “I like to work with my hands sometimes.” That is true, at least, though it’s not the reason he’s doing this. He realizes that his left hand is curled into such a tight fist that his knuckles are turning white. He loosens it carefully, wiping it on the knee of his slacks and trying to pretend like all of this is completely normal.  
  
“They are very nice hands,” Wonshik admits. It’s not at all what Hongbin was trying to imply, but right now he’d rather deal with Wonshik’s attempts at flirtation than try to explain what’s going on with his work. Especially since Hongbin himself is not entirely certain what is going on at all. “But it seems a waste to hand-weld a half-broken bot when you’ve got brand-new software and a deadline.”  
  
 _Right, the deadline—he knows I’m about to get fired._ Hongbin flounders for an explanation and ends up (god knows why) looking to Leo for help…except that Leo isn’t sitting in the corner where he left it anymore. _Shit._ His eyes scan the lab frantically, but Leo is nowhere to be found. _Please tell me it isn’t wandering the company somewhere._  
  
“Hey, you okay?” Wonshik asks when Hongbin struggles up from his stool with a heavy hand on the table. Tiny parts scatter from the jolt, flying to the floor and rolling away. He won’t find them for months; he’ll have to get out new ones if he decides to finish that arm. But the way things are going, unless he finds Leo it’s not likely that he’ll have a job by the end of the day, so maybe it doesn’t matter.  
  
What is Leo doing _wandering_ anyway? It doesn’t have a fucking personality chip; it shouldn’t have any _desire_ to move unless it’s ordered to. Hongbin is going to _kill_ Wonshik for giving him faulty software.  
  
 _“Hongbin.”_   
  
Hongbin freezes, still leaning mostly on one hand. The sharp corner of the metal table digs into his skin, but he can’t think over the weight of that voice in his head—a voice that he was never supposed to hear. _“Leo,”_ he breathes, unsure what else to do, while Wonshik (who is suddenly, unbearably close, when did he even _move_ ) looks up from steadying Hongbin and his eyes widen. Hongbin has a good idea what Wonshik is seeing over his shoulder.  
  
What is odd, is that Wonshik seems surprised, and…embarrassed? He steps away from Hongbin at once, putting distance between them as an apology spills from his lips. “Sorry,” he says, “I didn’t realize…if I’d known you were with someone I wouldn’t have hit on you.”  
  
Hongbin blinks at him, and then turns around to see what Wonshik’s seeing. It’s only Leo, standing there in a pair of Hongbin’s slacks (which are just a bit too short for him) and no shirt, with his hair all tousled as if he’s been playing with it. In short, it looks as if he’s just come from bed, and with all his important bits covered and the hair over one eye, it’s very difficult to tell that he’s a bot at all. Hongbin does pride himself in how lifelike his bots are.  
  
“I’m not with someone,” Hongbin says, waving Leo over as he tries to figure out how exactly he’s going to explain this.  
  
“Really?” Wonshik asks, shaking his head. “You could have fooled me. Most people I know consider sleeping together as being with someone.”  
  
Hongbin snorts, because that is the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard. This is the 25th century; lots of people have casual sex. Anyway, that is definitely not what is happening with Leo. He’s heard of people who use bots as a sort of sex slave, of course, though they only have some of the necessary parts. But Hongbin would never participate in that sort of thing. He _builds_ the things. He knows every bit of metal and wire that goes into a bot, has memorized the makeup of the materials that are used to imitate skin and hair. He has no desire to be intimate with a pile of parts.  
  
“I’m not _with him,_ though,” Hongbin insists. Leo comes up beside him and promptly wraps artificially muscular arms around his waist. “For the love of fuck, Leo, you are not helping. _Off._ ” He’s lucky that he’s strong, because Leo’s arms are reluctant. But Hongbin gets him standing on his own and brushes his hair from his face. “Look,” he tells Wonshik, “he’s a bot.”  
  
Wonshik cocks that incredulous eyebrow at him but obligingly looks into Leo’s eyes. After a moment he shrugs. “Looks pretty human to me.”  
  
Hongbin’s brow furrows, and he frowns at Wonshik. “Seriously not the time to be joking with me,” he grumbles, turning to move Leo…who is staring back at him with very deep, very brown eyes.  
  
Hongbin has to run out abruptly, before he throws up all over his lab and probably Leo’s bare feet.  
  
\---  
  
The stainless steel of the toilet seat is cool against his skin. He has a headache, and he doesn’t want to get up. Maybe if he stays here long enough then all of this will go away. He wants so badly to go back to before—before Leo, before this job, before…a lot of things. He wants to go back to when he was just a naïve kid and he thought he could do whatever he wanted. He wants to be brave and foolhardy and prepared to conquer anything. Right now all he thinks he might manage is a stiff drink and a few hours trying to work that will probably end with him destroying his lab.  
  
“Leo is worried.” Wonshik’s voice is quiet, probably afraid he’ll upset Hongbin more. Hongbin would do the same, in his shoes. Wonshik probably thinks he’s crazy now.  
  
Hongbin groans and pushes himself away from the toilet, standing to wash his hands, his face. “He would be,” he grumbles without much menace. The water is too cold. He should get that fixed.  
  
Wonshik has taken up residence against the doorjamb and doesn’t look inclined to move. “You okay?” he asks, and Hongbin’s not sure how sincere it is but it was nice of him to make the effort, anyway.  
  
“I’m fine,” he replies, heaving in a great breath of fresh air. It’s still stale in here, just like it is in the rest of the lab. This far down, all the air is recycled at least a dozen times over. He can’t remember the last time he actually went outside.  
  
Wonshik stands there for a bit longer, just watching Hongbin. Hongbin isn’t sure what to do when Wonshik isn’t flirting or making a snarky comment, so he just stands there too, much too tired to do anything else. “Wanna talk about it?”  
  
Hongbin frowns and crosses his arms. What can he even say to Wonshik without making himself seem crazier than he already has? “Not really.”  
  
“You sure?” Wonshik pushes off the doorjamb, reaches out for Hongbin’s arm, seems to think better of it. “I might understand better than you think.”  
  
“If I tell you, does that make it go away?”  
  
Wonshik shakes his head.  
  
“Then no,” Hongbin decides, “I really don’t want to talk about it.”  
  
There’s understanding in Wonshik’s eyes, understanding that Hongbin would analyze if he had a moment to. But Wonshik is nodding, ducking out of the room and leaving Hongbin alone.  
  
Well, with Leo, but being alone with a bot is really the same as being alone, right?  
  
With trepidation, Hongbin steps back out into the main room. Leo is there, staring at the bathroom door like he can’t look away. _Don’t call it ‘he,’_ Hongbin chides himself. _It’s not human. It’s a bot, and you’re going to figure out what’s wrong with it, fix it, and then give it to your boss to sell so he doesn’t fire you._  
  
The mental pep-talk doesn’t actually help, and stepping up to Leo he can’t help but observe (again) that it is… _remarkably_ lifelike. He tries to convince himself that that’s all it is, that he just did such a good job that it’s hard to tell the difference. But Leo’s eyes are still brown and wet, like human eyes. There is a reason that they always leave the eyes robotic: besides the obvious issues with getting more natural-looking eyes to work, it unnerves most people when they can’t tell who’s human and who’s a robot. There was a whole issue with it a decade ago, when bots were first starting to be produced in larger quantities, where people were worried that they would take over the world and no one would know until it was too late.  
  
Hongbin is starting to wonder if there’s a very real possibility of that.  
  
Besides the eyes, there’s no longer much to differentiate between human and robot, short of cutting them open to see if they bleed. Hongbin doesn’t really want to do that—it’s fairly simple for the bot to repair itself, but he’s never liked watching the artificial flesh part and expecting blood that never comes. Whenever he has to take off a part that’s already been covered he cringes a bit.  
  
Another option is to use the computer’s diagnostic software to find out what’s wrong, but considering it _built_ the thing in the first place he’s not sure whether he should trust it.  
  
Hongbin sighs and massages the spot between his eyebrows that always aches when he’s stressed. All of his options are bad ones, which just leaves deciding which one is the _least_ bad and going from there. Or, he supposes, he could ignore Leo entirely and go back to working on Model K, but considering what happened the last time he’s not sure that’s advisable.  
  
Awesome; Leo it is, then. Even after deciding, he stares at the bot for several more moments, unsure whether to touch it. “Stand over there, would you?” he finally tells it, gesturing at the spot just in front of the platform that the bots are built on. He’ll start with the software, and if it claims nothing is wrong then he’ll move on to other methods. Maybe there’s a malfunction it didn’t warn him about. Maybe he’s overreacting to a glitch in the program and all of this will be fixed in a few minutes and he’ll be able to hand Leo off and forget that this ever happened.  
  
Leo is still obedient at least, and goes where it’s bid, standing like a statue while Hongbin opens the diagnostics program on his computer. ‘Processing,’ the blue lettering on the screen tells him. He closes his eyes and leans back in his chair, waiting for it to load.   
  
After a few moments the computer gives a rude, honking beep. Hongbin jerks up and watches as a black error screen takes over an entire monitor. ‘Error 404,’ it reads in annoyingly glittery letters. ‘Bot not found.’  
  
“What do you mean, _not found!_ ” Hongbin screams at it, grabbing the sides of the monitor and actually _shaking_ it. “It’s _right fucking there._ Please just do your job so I don’t lose mine!”  
  
The computer says nothing in response, of course, just continues to blink the error message at him. His head aches so badly.  
  
There has to be something wrong with the software; that’s the only explanation. Or at least, it’s the only explanation that Hongbin will accept. Because if Leo really is a person, then that means…. He turns to look at the bot, really look at it. Setting aside everything he thinks he knows about it, he wonders, is it really possible that Leo is _human?_  
  
He looks human, certainly, and Hongbin examined him just a few hours ago, touched every joint and knows beyond a doubt that he’s built just like a human…but also like a bot. So how the hell is he supposed to know, supposed to figure out whether he’s overreacting or whether something terribly wrong is going on?  
  
Studying Leo doesn’t help. If he is human, he’s certainly good at playing the part of a bot, and Hongbin doesn’t know why he would do that, unless someone has decided to play some sort of elaborate prank on him. But Hongbin doesn’t have any friends at the company, doesn’t know anyone who would do something like that.  
  
If he’s really human and it’s not a prank, then only one logical explanation remains: there is definitely something wrong with Hongbin’s computer. _It can’t be,_ he tells himself. _There is no way that my machines somehow made a bot with human parts. That’s not the sort of thing that happens by accident._  
  
If it’s not an accident, that’s actually more terrifying. But he’s getting ahead of himself. He has no _proof_ that Leo is not just a bot. And there are still ways—no matter how upsetting they are—to check that.  
  
Steeling himself, Hongbin stands and yanks a drawer open. It’s a jumbled mess of assorted tools, but he finds the thin knife he’s looking for easily enough. With it clenched tightly in his fist, he rounds the desk to stand before Leo. “Give me your hand,” he orders, holding out a demanding palm.  
  
Leo lifts its left arm and settles delicate fingers against Hongbin’s. Hongbin grasps Leo’s wrist and flips its hand over, dragging the blade of the knife over the fleshy part of the palm just below the thumb. The skin parts easily and Leo hisses in pain. He flinches away, but Hongbin keeps hold of his hand, watching it intently.  
  
There is no blood. All he’s done is expose a bit of wiring. But Leo’s reaction…a bot shouldn’t have pain receptors. Hongbin squints at him, looks into Leo’s eyes and tries to understand where this is all coming from. “What are you?” he asks Leo. “How are you possible?”  
  
Leo stares at him, his face more guarded than it was, though Hongbin’s not sure how he knows that. Leo’s expressions haven’t changed much throughout all of this. _“You made me,”_ he replies.  
  
Hongbin drops Leo’s hand and reaches up to tug at his own hair. “That’s what I thought. But you’re not…you’re not human, but you’re not a bot either, and this can’t be possible because the only thing that’s in between is—“  
  
 _No._  
  
He steps back from Leo, the knife dropping from his hand. The clang of it hitting the concrete floor is loud, as are Hongbin’s footsteps as he puts as much space as possible between himself and Leo.  
  
 _“I made you this?”_ he whispers, horrified. _“How?”_  
  
Leo just stares back at him. Of course, it’s likely he doesn’t know. He didn’t need to know.  
  
 _ **I was taken.**_  
  
 _Oh god._ The realization comes rushing in all at once. The boss’ frustration with him, his declarations that none of Hongbin’s bots were up to par, the software upgrade. _How long have the other engineers been making cyborgs?_  
  
His breathing gets faster and he finds he can’t control it, even as darkness pulls in at the sides of his vision. _I’m going to faint,_ he thinks just as the world goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there should be another update on Thursday next week, assuming I don't decide I have something else I need to post instead. At the rate we're going, I should have enough material for about six more updates, and hopefully by the time we get through all that I'll have more finished. Feel free to come say hi or harass me on [tumblr,](http://phantomflutist.tumblr.com) and as always comments are very welcome!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the part where I warn you that this Hongbin is very mentally unwell. He has anxiety, as well as some other issues that will probably be elaborated on in future. If that's going to be triggering for you, I recommend that you don't read. Your mental health absolutely matters more than my story, and I know what it's like, wanting to read a story and then finding yourself in a place you shouldn't have gone. So please exercise caution moving forward. That is all, so if you're still with me, please enjoy!

_“Are you okay?”_

_The blonde man looks up—surprised, apparently, that he is not alone. He waves a hand dismissively. “I’m fine; it’s just been a bad week. Lots of visits to—never mind, it’s not important.”_

_Hongbin nods in understanding and sits down in the chair. The blond rolls his stool away from the desk to sit beside him._

_“So what is it this time?” he asks, pulling out a pair of rubber gloves._

_Hongbin leans back and inspects the ceiling seriously for a moment. “She’s back,” he says at last, sighing._

_The blonde frowns. “Have you been taking your meds?”_

_“Sometimes,” Hongbin answers, shrugging. He barely remembers to eat or sleep. How the hell is he supposed to remember to take pills at specific hours?_

_The_ _blonde’s frown deepens, which doesn’t look at all right on his face. He has a cheerful countenance, and it should stay that way. He huffs, and tells Hongbin, “Well, I’ll take a look, but you need to remember your meds, or it’s only going to get worse. Okay?”_

_Hongbin nods kind of vaguely and sits calmly as the blonde gets out his tools. Needles and knives don’t scare Hongbin anymore, not after…._

_\---_

Hongbin wakes up slowly. He inhales stale air and shifts his legs. He’s still wearing his slacks, and they’re restricting beneath the blanket. His head aches, but he’s used to that. The cool, damp cloth on his forehead is new, though, as is the gentle humming that reaches his ears. He doesn’t recognize the song, but it’s soothing nonetheless.

_Leo._ He opens his eyes (the light burns) and turns his head, intent on addressing the cyborg currently playing nursemaid.

Leo makes a high, distressed noise when the cloth falls off Hongbin’s head and immediately reaches to replace it.

“Don’t,” Hongbin says, taking his hand to stop it. He drags the blanket aside and sits up, swinging his legs off the cot. He feels much better being on even ground with Leo, as this conversation is going to be difficult enough.

Leo just watches him, saying nothing, though his muscles are tensed like it’s taking a lot of physical effort on his part not to push Hongbin back down. It must have scared him, Hongbin just fainting like that.

“I’m sorry,” Hongbin murmurs, though he knows it’s not enough. How terrified Leo must have been, how awful to be taken from the people you love and brought to a place like this, to be made into something less than human entirely against your will. Nothing will ever be able to make up for what Hongbin has done.

Leo’s eyes are soft, his words softer when he replies, “It is not your fault.”

Hongbin snorts derisively. He squeezes Leo’s hand—there’s no longer any sign of the cut Hongbin inflicted just a few hours ago. “I made you this,” he tells Leo. “Whether I was the one who brought you here doesn’t matter. I ordered the machines to make you what you are, and I can never fix that. So for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“Do not be.” Leo shakes his head and his hair shifts so Hongbin has a brief, unobstructed view of both his eyes. “It is hard to remember who I was…before. But I know that I was dying. You have given me another chance at life.” He looks so damn grateful, which just makes Hongbin feel worse.

“You have to know,” Hongbin begins, struggling with his words. There are things that he has to tell Leo, like the reasons that making cyborgs is _illegal_. “Being a cyborg isn’t without risks. Being half-human and half-machine can…skew reality. You might see things that aren’t there, hear things that aren’t happening.” Breathing is difficult and his head aches. He wants to go back to sleep. “Even emotions are…sometimes you feel things and don’t know why, or you feel justified emotions too strongly. It tears you apart inside until you’re not sure who you are anymore, and then you can’t function, and eventually you want to die.”

His vision is too blurred to see anymore, but he feels his head being gently pressed against a firm shoulder and he lets Leo hold him. “It is alright,” Leo whispers, and Hongbin feels the conviction behind those three small words. “We will be fine.”

\---

After Hongbin has stopped crying (and Leo, bless his heart, doesn’t ask why he started in the first place) he gets up with new determination. “We can’t let them do this to anyone else,” he insists, going for his computer console. He’s not actually sure what he’s planning to do, but in any case Leo’s hand on his arm stops him before he gets there.

“You should rest,” he says, his expression stern. Hongbin finds his frown endearing.

“There’s no time. We have to get this shut down,” Hongbin repeats, desperate for Leo to see. Of all people, Leo should understand why this is important.

Leo bows his head, apparently looking for words. Hongbin waits semi-impatiently, and is almost ready to pull out of Leo’s grip when he speaks. “It is important. But you should be careful.”

That causes Hongbin to pause. “What makes you say that?” he asks, squinting suspiciously at Leo. Whatever he thinks he knows….

“They will not like it. They could hurt you.” His brows pull together and finally Hongbin sees. Leo is concerned for him because they are in very real danger. If the company is willing to _kidnap_ people in order to make cyborgs, what else might they be capable of? Going against them, even publically, is a very risky game.

Hongbin groans low and drops back down to the bed, his head in his hands. “What are we supposed to do, then? We can’t just let this continue.”

Leo sits beside him and wraps a careful arm around Hongbin’s shoulders. “Then we stop them. But we must make a plan first.”

“Right.” Hongbin nods, seeing the sense in that. But before they can make a plan, there’s something else that has to happen. “And we need to get you out of here.” There’s no way that the company doesn’t already know about Leo. They probably keep very careful tabs on all of their ‘experiments,’ so getting him out isn’t going to be easy. There’s probably a tracking device implanted somewhere in his body, just in case.

Except…the computer hadn’t recognized Leo. Did something go wrong after all? Hongbin stands, more intent on his goal this time. His computer terminal is idling when he stops in front of it, all the screens off and only a few sad, blue lights blinking on the main console to let him know that it hasn’t shut down completely. He taps the screen impatiently, huffing at it in the few seconds that it takes to wake up.

The program that runs the machinery is still open, though the error screen that was flashing has stopped now. Hongbin trails his fingers along the icons, looking for one he doesn’t use very often. ‘Processing,’ the computer tells him helpfully when he touches his selection. The letters rotate as it loads, and Hongbin remembers the days before all this, when he could watch the loading screen peacefully and not feel an ounce of frustration because hey, at least he didn’t have to build the bot by hand.

The activity log has only one entry, in tiny silver print. The listing is a jumble of letters and numbers, which indicate the date and time the work was started and the type of work that was being done. Hongbin skims over those because he knows it all already and instead drags the entry’s bar down so that he can read the details.

‘Assembly begun,’ he reads, squinting at the god-awful font. Whoever chose this theme was on something; he would bet money on it. ‘Android model 2m18H, designation L.’ After that there’s a bunch of technical jargon, referencing part numbers and sizing. It’s all very clinical, and Hongbin’s skin begins to crawl. This is how Leo was _made_. He was pulled together from a pile of parts, except that some of those parts were…human.

There’s nothing in the log that suggests anything out of the ordinary, which begs the question: Do the other engineers even know about this? Have they had a ‘bot’ react the way Hongbin has, or did something really malfunction when Leo was made? He has to force himself to push down the questions and keep going, for now.

‘Work complete,’ the last line says, letters twinkling mockingly at him. ‘Android malfunction. Correcting…. Correction impossible. Reporting issue to main server and deleting Android from database.’

Hongbin stares at the screen for a while, rubs his eyes, and then stares some more. “Can’t be,” he mutters.

Leo comes up behind him and leans down to read over his shoulder. When he’s finished (which is remarkably fast) he straightens and doesn’t say a word, simply turns and goes back to the area where Hongbin’s cot is. When he returns, he’s finally wearing a shirt, and Hongbin can’t do anything more than blink at him as all that smooth skin is covered up.

“Well?” Leo asks, frowning at Hongbin (or maybe that’s just his default expression, Hongbin’s not actually sure.)

“Well, what?” Hongbin replies, still staring. He should probably stop. He’s probably making Leo very uncomfortable right now, and they’re trying to have a conversation. Where is he supposed to look again? Right, Leo’s face—he has a very pretty face, angular and strong, with high cheekbones and a soft mouth.

Leo is glaring at him when Hongbin finally manages to find his eyes. “We need to leave.”

_Of course,_ Hongbin thinks. He doesn’t know why he’s so distracted, though it may have to do with the lack of sleep and…when was the last time he took his medication? Too long ago, he decides at last, which means he’ll need to find that before they go. But they need to go now, because Leo doesn’t exist, at least until the company figures out that he’s not actually a reject bot.

Leo slips his feet into a pair of Hongbin’s old shoes (at least their feet are the same size) and comes over to Hongbin and pulls him out of his chair, apparently tired of waiting for Hongbin to get the memo. The chair rolls away and crashes into the desk, which Hongbin should probably be worried about but isn’t, for some reason.

“My pills,” he mumbles kind of vaguely, and maybe that’s enough for Leo to figure out what’s going on because he sighs and stops their trek to the door.

“Where are they?” he asks, his voice even higher with tension. They need to _leave_.

Hongbin waves a hand sort of in the direction of the bathroom. “That way,” he says. “Probably.”

Leo’s face is scrunched up in annoyance as he disappears into the bathroom. He’s gone for only a few moments, during which Hongbin hears doors opening and things sort of being…thrown around, but when Leo comes back he’s holding a small bottle. He reads it carefully, and then opens it and presses two of the pills into Hongbin’s palm, ordering, “Take them.”

Hongbin does, dropping them into his mouth and swallowing them dry. He doesn’t even choke.

Leo stares at him, eyebrows furrowed and mouth set in a thin line. Hongbin thinks that he looks much better when he’s not worried.

The fog clears slowly, and when he’s more in control of his faculties Hongbin brings his hands up to his face and hides. “Oh god, I’m so sorry. I don’t usually get like that.”

Leo shakes his head. “We have wasted enough time. We can talk later.”

“We’ll have to,” Hongbin agrees, but he leads the way to the door. Leo is right; they don’t have any time to spare right now. For all they know, by tomorrow they could be fugitives.

The hallway outside the lab is solid concrete with an occasional steel door set into it. This part of the building is all labs like Hongbin’s, huge spaces designed for building large numbers of bots and ultimately used as a type of living space as well. He’s been working here for years and has only ever seen another engineer very rarely, when they both happened to wander out of their labs at the same time. He just prays that this is not one of those times.

The only sound is the whirring of the ventilation system, recycling the air over and over again. Hongbin tries to tread softly while still looking like he’s walking normally. Outside of his private lab there are security cameras everywhere, so the best course of action is to act nonchalant.

Halfway down the hall, Leo goes for the stairs. Hongbin snatches at his arm, misses, and ends up catching the back of his shirt instead. “Elevator,” he says, calmly, as if it’s just a reminder. “We’re eighteen floors down.”

Leo nods—like he knew that, because if he’d gotten himself down there of course he would. The light sneakers he wears make a gentle ‘tap, tap, tap,’ sound on the floor as they resume their trek down the hall.  Compared to the louder clicking of Hongbin’s dress shoes it’s barely noticeable, but he can’t help but almost hold his breath as they walk along anyway.

They’re just a few meters away from the elevator when Hongbin hears the bright creak and grind of a little-used steel door being pulled open. There’s no way that they’re going to be gone before the other engineer steps into the hallway, and Hongbin feels his throat swelling up, cutting off the miniscule breaths he was taking. _Maybe we should have taken the stairs after all._

Just as they get to the end of the hall, there’s a ding and the elevator doors slide open. Hongbin chokes and thinks, _this is it, we’re caught,  it’s over._ But Wonshik is standing there, about to step off, and Hongbin pushes him back, pulls Leo in behind him, and violently stabs at the ‘close door’ button, followed by the one that will take them to the lobby.

As soon as they’re moving, Hongbin heaves a great, gasping breath and slumps against the railing. Leo stares impassively at him until Hongbin realizes he still has ahold of Leo’s sleeve and releases him.

“Um,” Wonshik says intelligently, cocking one of his stupid eyebrows, “everything okay?”

Hongbin nods, waves a hand at the closed door, and gives a brief, mumbling, “I don’t get along with the other engineers.” It’s not nearly enough explanation for his reaction, but considering that the elevator _also_ has cameras, and that he barely knows Wonshik, that’s really all he should probably say.

Hongbin is tired. Those stupid pills always make him tired and that’s about the last thing he needs right now. He hates being tired and he hates that the meds take away his creative juices and he hates that they make him into a person he’s not. But sometimes he also hates the person that he becomes when he stops taking the pills, too. It’s an awful cycle, one that he’s a little too familiar with.

They get to the lobby and Wonshik steps off with them, and Hongbin realizes what a bad idea this was. He forgot how many _people_ walk through the lobby, the front desk attendants notwithstanding. Maybe they should have gone for a side door. _No, this was the best choice. There’s nothing unusual about this, we were here and now we’re leaving. Everything is fine._

Hongbin is starting to feel like he’s having a panic attack, which is probably bad. He’s pretty sure that people are supposed to breathe. He should start moving, should just walk casually to the door and out into the smoggy air and go to the monorail station and get on the train, just like always. It’s unlikely that any of these people—the two women with carefully-spiked hair standing in the corner with coffee cups in their hands, the younger man with the long ponytail who is arguing with the desk clerk, or the older gentleman who seems to be conversing with a potted plant—will even recognize him.

So he should just start walking and no one will know a thing, except that it feels like his feet are glued to the floor and he doesn’t think he can move. In fact, he’s more likely to pass out right here and cause a huge scene and get them discovered, which really won’t help anyone. He’s starting to hyperventilate, and he wishes he could do something about this, because he feels weak and stupid and useless, and this is why he never leaves his lab.

A cool hand slips into his and it’s like the whole world suddenly snaps back into focus. “Breathe,” Leo murmurs into his ear, and then they’re moving, striding purposefully towards the door and the little bit of sunshine that manages to make it through the ever-present black clouds of smoke and soot and industrial waste.

Hongbin hasn’t been outside in weeks, and he’s unprepared for the choking, stinging air when they step out. Most people are used to this now, or they wear masks designed to prevent the tiny particles from filling up your lungs and killing you. Mostly people stay inside, and all the air is filtered over and over by ventilation systems. It doesn’t help. Eventually everyone gets sick, and then it gets worse and worse until they die. It’s what happened to Hongbin’s parents when he was sixteen, it’s what happened to the older cousin who took him in after that, and it’s what happened to _her_. If you’re careful, you last long enough to get married, to raise children. But not everyone is that lucky.

He coughs, even as they walk quickly towards the monorail station. It’s only a few blocks from the company, and Hongbin won’t truly feel like they’re in the clear until they’re on the train. Someone taps his shoulder and he seriously considers just ignoring them and walking faster, but then a soft white mask is held out to him and he looks up at Wonshik’s (surprisingly gentle) face and smiles a little.

With the mask hooked over his ears it’s a little easier to breathe, and being able to breathe makes it easier to focus on other things, like the fact that Wonshik is still walking with them. “Thanks for this,” Hongbin says, hoping that Wonshik will get the point that he’s grateful and then leave them alone. Is he going to follow them all the way to the train station?

“No problem,” Wonshik replies, waving it off. “I always carry one of those around but I hardly ever use it. Lungs of steel, you know?” He taps his chest with a fist, clearly trying to get a laugh out of Hongbin, but Hongbin just winces. Leo’s not having any problems with the air.

“Yeah,” Hongbin replies, because Wonshik is staring at him like he’s waiting for some sort of reaction. “Are you going to the station too?” He really fucking hopes not. He needs to get away from Wonshik, because Wonshik is observant and not stupid, and if he spends too long near them Hongbin is worried that he’ll put it together. If that happens, everything will be over.

Wonshik winks at him as he replies, “Why, did you want to ride with me?” Directly afterwards he glances at Leo, who is frowning fiercely at him, and apologizes. “Sorry, force of habit. Anyway, I actually live just past the station.”

“Oh.” Hongbin tries not to sound too happy about that. It’s not that Wonshik is not a nice guy, because he is. But well…the current situation is fucked up and Hongbin can’t deal with this right now. Actually, he’s not really sure that he’ll ever be ready to deal with that sort of thing. Wonshik is so…young and cheerful, and still in love with life. Hongbin doesn’t think that it’s a good idea for someone like that to get involved in any kind of relationship with someone like him. “Well, I guess this is goodbye then.”

They’ve reached the monorail station, and Hongbin pauses briefly. Leo doesn’t catch the hint right away, and Hongbin feels his arm pull as Leo tries to walk off without him. Oh right, they’re still holding hands. No wonder Wonshik apologized for flirting with him. That’s awkward.

“Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow?” Wonshik says. The hopeful lilt of a question at the end is kind of cute, as is the way Wonshik tilts his head to one side as he says it.

“Maybe,” Hongbin finds himself mumbling, and then he’s nodding to Wonshik as Leo pulls him to the station door.

The station is not terribly crowded. It’s fairly late in the day and most people have gone home by now, but every eye that flicks their way makes Hongbin shiver a little more, until he’s shaking violently. Leo wraps an arm around his shoulders, leads him over towards the platform, and finds him a seat. There’s another, but instead of taking it Leo stands careful guard behind him, his hands firmly planted on Hongbin’s shoulders. He is not alone.

It’s only a few minutes before their train shows up, and Leo takes his hand and leads him to the door. As they board, a quiet greeting crackles through Hongbin’s earpiece, thanking him for riding the monorail. He ignores it and snags them seats a good meter away from anyone else on the train. Thank god it’s quiet. He doesn’t know if he could do this during rush hour.

As the train pulls away from the station Hongbin finally manages to relax. They’re home free. For tonight, anyway, it’s going to be alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it for now! Thanks for reading. I'll see you all next week, or sooner if you want to harass me on [tumblr.](http://phantomflutist.tumblr.com)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there's more of Hongbin being very mentally unwell in this part. That will continue for the foreseeable future, and explanation of his problems will happen...eventually. I've been sick for the past week, so I haven't really gotten ahead on this like I was hoping, but I should have a few more weeks of updates left and I'll hopefully be able to get some more written by then. Please enjoy!

It takes three tries before Hongbin remembers the lock code for his apartment. When the door is finally open, he steps over the threshold and realizes that it may have been much longer since he was last here than he’d originally thought. There’s a thick layer of dust over everything and the air smells stale—more stale than usual, that is. He slips his shoes off and pads into the living room anyway, picking up dust with his socks as he walks and leaving a clean trail on the wood floor behind him.  
  
Leo closes the door softly and follows him in, treading carefully with his bare feet. Hongbin’s not sure what to do with him now that they’re here—he hadn’t really thought past getting them both out of there before the company figured out that Leo hadn’t been destroyed. Now he realizes that there are more logistics to it than that, and he wonders where he’s going to put Leo—there’s only one bedroom and the bed in it is tiny, and the couch was old when he bought it and was never comfortable to sit on, let alone lie down.  
  
He turns around, intent on discussing it with Leo and probably offering to take the couch even though it’ll be hell on his back and he’ll feel like shit tomorrow. That is if he sleeps at all.  
  
“I will take the couch,” Leo says in a soft voice. He shuffles past Hongbin and flops gracefully onto said furniture, not batting an eyelash at the springs that Hongbin _knows_ have to be pressing into his flesh right now. Leo has pain receptors, Hongbin saw proof of that, but apparently he’s pretty determined to stay where he is.  
  
“You sure?” Hongbin asks, scratching the back of his head awkwardly. He should stop letting Leo take care of him. This is all his fault and he should really be taking care of Leo as penance for making him what he is. But Leo seems to _enjoy_ taking care of Hongbin, which could easily be a symptom of his programming more than an actual personality trait, but it’s not like there’s an easy way to tell the difference. Hongbin would bet that even Leo isn’t exactly sure which parts he came with and which were added.  
  
Leo nods once, decisively, and tells him, “I am sure. You should rest.” Then he lies back, staring contemplatively at the ceiling. After a few moments he begins to hum to himself, and Hongbin takes that as his cue to leave.  
  
“Right, then, um…just let me know if you need anything,” he says, shifting uncomfortably. When Leo nods again, absently, Hongbin flees the room.  
  
His bedroom is just as dusty and unused as the rest of the apartment. He used to have a tiny, wheeled maidbot to do his cleaning for him, but if he remembers right he dismantled it for parts at some point. That or it broke down and he was too busy to fix it; one or the other.  
  
The clothes in his dresser are less dusty than the rest of the house, at least. He’d prefer to sleep clothed with Leo here. He replaces his slacks and dress shirt with a pair of loose sleep pants, then slips into the bathroom to brush his teeth. He’ll need to do some cleaning in the morning, because frankly, everything in this place is disgusting, but it will do for now.  
  
He takes the blanket off the bed and shakes it to rid it of most of the dust, and then does the same with the pillow. It’s not perfect, but he finds he’s actually exhausted. They need to figure out what to do about the company and about Leo—he’d like to find Leo’s family, if he has any—but that can wait a few hours too. Hongbin is clearly not functioning well, and maybe the extra time (or rest? Does he sleep?) will help Leo as well.  
  
His bed is more comfortable than he remembered, and it’s surprisingly easy to drift off to sleep with Leo’s gentle humming still drifting in through the cracks around the door.  
  
\---  
  
_She is so beautiful, and Hongbin is so happy. Her hair is like silk against his hand when he reaches out to run careful fingers through it. She smiles softly at him, ducking her head as if her happiness is a secret that she has to guard carefully. Hongbin wants to see her smiles, every last one, and draw them out of her until his dying breath._  
  
_He kisses her and her eyes glint, beginning to fill with tears as he whispers words of adoration against her skin. They are not enough. No words will ever be enough to express how much he feels for her._  
  
_She presses her face to his chest and he is content to hold her, to stroke her hair and tell her how beautiful and wonderful and_ perfect for him _she is. She and his work are the only good things in his life, but the difference between the two is that he could live without the work, but he could never live without her._  
  
_She coughs, lightly, and he rubs her back and stares at her in concern, but she only waves it off. A little cold, she insists. They’ve been passing something around at the café where she works and it was only a matter of time before she came down with it too. She’ll call in sick tomorrow and get some rest—he can coddle and dote on her._  
  
_He agrees, chuckling and kissing her forehead. The home workshop will be fine for the projects he’s working on right now, and he doesn’t have any appointments scheduled for tomorrow. He’ll be at her beck and call, he promises._  
  
\---  
  
For the second time in as many days, Hongbin wakes up to a soft song. This time Leo is singing instead of humming, his voice quiet enough that Hongbin can’t make out the lyrics very well through the bedroom door. As far as he can tell, it’s a song about losing a lover. That’s a cheery thought.  
  
Leo is making other noise, shuffling around the apartment, and Hongbin wonders how long he’s been awake…or if he slept. Cyborgs are rare, being illegal, so there’s not exactly _documentation_ of how they’re supposed to work, and besides that Leo is technically “malfunctioning,” so who knows if he would follow the manual if there was one. No, all Hongbin has to go on is personal experience and the stories that he’s heard, and trial and error with Leo himself.  
  
Speaking of which, he should probably get out of bed. He and Leo need to have a serious talk, and then they need to start making a strategy. Hongbin has never attempted to foil a large company’s plans to enslave the entire world and turn them into cyborgs before, so he doesn’t really even know where to start. Probably with coffee.  
  
When Hongbin stops fighting with himself and finally emerges from the bedroom, Leo is _sweeping_ , of all things.  
  
“Um,” Hongbin says intelligently, staring at him. Did he ask Leo to clean? He’s pretty sure he didn’t.  
  
Leo looks up. Dust swirls the air around him, and coats his hair and clothes. He tosses his head to get the artful fringe that Hongbin gave him out of his eyes. Oh. That’s not the most practical design, is it? He’ll have to keep note of that for future bots. “I apologize,” Leo says, breaking the awkward silence and Hongbin’s train of thought. “I did not mean to wake you.”  
  
Hongbin waves a hand in dismissal. “Nah, that’s fine. But um…were you bored, or…?” He trails off, not sure where to go with that sentence and just gesturing at the broom in Leo’s hand.  
  
Leo glances down at it as if he’d forgotten he was holding it and then nods. “I could not sleep, and your apartment is…in need of help.”  
  
Hongbin snorts, because that is the biggest understatement he has ever heard. “Well, you’re welcome to it, I guess. I’m gonna see if there’s anything edible left in this place.” There probably isn’t. Hongbin is under the impression that usually _buying food_ is necessary in order to possess it. If he’s lucky there will be coffee, but he’s not holding out hope for anything beyond that. If they’re going to be spending much time here he’s going to have to go shopping.  
  
He’s not sure where the nearest market is anymore—was it one street over or two?—but he’s sure he can figure it out. And he certainly has plenty of money, assuming his paychecks from the company have been getting deposited into his account correctly. He hasn’t had a need for money in weeks, except for an occasional food run at the company commissary. But considering how often he actually remembers to feed himself—there’s a coffee pot in his lab, and a couple of bottles of…something he’s probably not actually allowed to have at work stashed away beneath his cot, but other than that it’s just the occasional lunch—he probably has enough cash to spare.  
  
He should check on paying his rent. It probably wouldn’t be good to get evicted, even if he’s not usually here very often.  
Speaking of which, he realizes suddenly, his job is still at risk. He has two days left to give his superior a bot that pleases him. And if Hongbin is right about the reason all of his latest bots weren’t up to par, then he’s definitely going to lose his job.  
  
He bangs his head against the cupboard he was about to open. He can make another _cyborg_ and keep his job so that he can take the company down from the inside in the way that he clearly needs to (or someone needs to, anyway) or he can refuse to turn anyone else into the thing he’s made Leo and lose the chance to stop what’s happening.  
  
He and Leo need to have a conversation…and he desperately needs coffee.  
  
Thank fuck, there actually is coffee in his cupboard—there’s nothing else, but that’s an issue for another time—so he starts a pot and watches as it slowly brews. When it’s finished he fishes out a cup—they’re all dusty, so he has to pause and wash it—and fills it with fresh, black liquid.  
  
_That’s better,_ he thinks, inhaling deeply with the cup close to his nose. This was always his favorite brand. Maybe now he can finally handle all of this.  
  
He wanders out to the living room and sits down on the couch, wincing when a particularly sharp spring digs itself into his ass. How did Leo sleep on here? Watching Leo work (the house actually looks much better than it did last night) Hongbin is inclined to believe that he didn’t.  
  
“Do you get tired?” Hongbin finds himself asking, genuinely curious. It would be nice, not to have to sleep at all. Not to have dreams.  
  
Leo turns to look at him and seems to consider that for a moment. “I assume that I do not. I have not felt any fatigue, nor any hunger. I am more steel than flesh.” He taps at his chest, and Hongbin almost expects a metal clanging noise, but it’s more of a dull thump.  
  
He feels the guilt seeping in again. He never meant to do that to another person. Dying or not, Leo should have at least been allowed to make the decision for himself. For all Hongbin knows, Leo had made peace with dying before he was kidnapped. Maybe he had nothing left to live for. Hongbin knows that there have been many times in his own life that he would have welcomed death. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, because it’s the only thing he feels he has the right to say. He gazes down into his coffee cup, suddenly not as interested in drinking it as he had been a moment ago.  
  
He hears Leo set aside the broom and then feels it when he sinks into the couch next to Hongbin. “I was in love,” he says. The words are quiet, reverent. “I do not remember their face, but I remember that I had someone who loved me.”  
  
Hongbin sighs and sets his coffee cup down on the floor. Leo’s memories must be returning, slowly. “Do you still love them?”  
  
Hongbin sees the nod out of the corner of his eye. “You were right about my emotions. I may no longer function like a human, but I still feel like one.” He lifts his left hand and stares at it for several long moments. “I have this odd feeling…like something important is missing.”  
  
“Then we’ll find it,” Hongbin promises, reaching out to clasp Leo’s right hand, the one closest to him. They have a lot to work on, and Hongbin’s not sure where to start.  
  
Leo squeezes Hongbin’s hand gently and it spasms and then starts shaking violently. Hongbin hisses and pulls it to his chest, linking the fingers of his right hand through the fingers of his left and stretching the tendons carefully. “I apologize,” Leo says at once, watching him with his eyebrows slightly furrowed. “I did not mean to injure you. Perhaps I do not know my own strength.”  
  
Hongbin shakes his head, still intent on fixing the tremors before they spread up his arm. “It’s not you, it just does this sometimes,” he assures Leo. He _really_ needs to get it looked at, before it gets worse and he loses the ability to use his dominant hand. He’ll call and make an appointment later, but they’ve got more important things to worry about at the moment.  
  
He flexes his fingers, then holds his left hand out in front of him, making a focused effort to keep it still. It’s still shaking a bit, but it’s much better than it was. He reaches down for his coffee cup and then stands, throwing the last of it back—it burns a bit going down, but he ignores it. “Look,” he tells Leo, “I have to go back to work today, and you can’t come for obvious reasons. I hate to make you hang around my apartment by yourself, but….”  
  
“I will be fine,” Leo interrupts. Hongbin doesn’t mind—it’s not like he was going to finish that sentence anyway. “I will continue cleaning.”  
  
Hongbin blinks at him. “You know you’re not obligated to clean or anything, right? There are books if you want,” he gestures at the three over-stuffed shelves along the wall, “or I’m pretty sure the TV still works.” He hasn’t used it in ages—he hasn’t used anything much in this apartment except for his clothes and his bed.  
  
“Thank you,” Leo nods, “but I find the work relaxing. I do not mind.”  
  
Hongbin releases a long breath through his nose. “Okay, well, if it makes you happy, then whatever is fine. Just don’t want you to feel like you have to do anything you don’t want to.”  
  
Leo’s mouth quirks up in what Hongbin thinks might be a smile. “I am quite happy. I know that you are trying, Hongbin, and that is more than enough for me.”  
  
“You never should have been taken from your family in the first place,” Hongbin mutters. And he realizes something—that if he makes another cyborg it will be someone else who should never have been taken from their loved ones. He will be condemning another person to a life of servitude that they didn’t sign up for. “Oh god,” he says, sinking down to the floor and putting his forehead on his raised knees. He hears the coffee cup crash onto the wood as he reaches up for his hair, pulling on it desperately until he feels the sting of pain. He should be concerned about the broken glass but he _can’t_. “I can’t go back,” he whimpers. His head hurts. Everything hurts, and he can’t do this. This is not why he started working at the company. All he wanted was to _forget_.  
  
Leo’s hands are gentle on his, pulling his fingers from his hair and laying them on his legs instead. Leo’s hands smooth over Hongbin’s forehead. His flesh is cool against Hongbin’s. It’s soothing. Hongbin leans into Leo’s touch, so starved of human contact that he’d almost forgotten how it felt to have another person’s hands on his skin.  
  
_“Hongbin.”_  
  
His head jerks up suddenly, and there she is, sitting on the sofa with her knees pulled up to her chest. Her legs are covered with that throw blanket she always liked, the one with the little pink hearts all over it, the one that Hongbin packed into a box and put away in a storage unit with the rest of the things that reminded him of her years ago.  
  
_“You wanted to avenge me,”_ she reminds him. She’s right. When he was young and stupid, when he thought that it would help anything or do anything useful at all, Hongbin had wanted to avenge her. Now he just wants to stop living without her.  
  
“I can’t,” he tells her. He feels the fluttering hands on his face still, but he can’t take his eyes off of her.  
  
_“You’re right,”_ she tells him. _“Revenge isn’t worth it. It won’t bring me back. It won’t make your heart stop hurting. But you can save someone else.”_  
  
He stares at her. He’s not sure what she’s suggesting and to be honest all he wants is to look at her forever. She is so beautiful.  
  
_“Go back to work, Hongbin._ ”  
  
She disappears, and Hongbin finds that there are tears on his face and that Leo is kneeling beside him holding a glass of water and two small pills. “You should take these,” he murmurs softly, pressing the pills into Hongbin’s hand. Hongbin is shaking so hard that he almost drops them, but he manages to get them to his mouth and wash them down.  
  
Leo only watches him as he does it, and doesn’t say anything even after. He just takes the cup back to the kitchen and then begins cleaning up the broken coffee mug. Hongbin follows his movements with tired eyes. He doesn’t want to go back to work, but when she tells him to do something she’s usually right.  
  
“I have to go to work,” he says, mostly to himself.  
  
Leo responds though, nodding tightly and saying, “I know that it is a sacrifice. But we must know more about their operation, and that is the best way to find out.”  
  
Hongbin takes a deep, shuddering breath. He looks back at the couch, but he knows she won’t be back. She’s said her piece, and now she’s returned to wherever it is she lives when she’s not tormenting him. Finally he stands up, and says decisively, “I guess I need a shower, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are appreciated, or you can come harass me on [Tumblr.](http://phantomflutist.tumblr.com)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update is a bit shorter than most. Sorry about that, but I've been dealing with a double ear infection and the inability to stop coughing for the last week and a half, and so I haven't been able to get as much writing in as I wanted. The next part needs a bit of editing before I share it with you guys, but it should be up next week as planned. Thanks for putting up with me, and as usual, please enjoy!

The lobby is crowded. It’s been a long time since Hongbin has come to work at a normal hour. He’d forgotten how busy it gets when everyone is trying to go somewhere at once. The wait for the elevator is a long one, and several people groan audibly when he presses the button for B18. It’s not like he can help where his lab is though, and there’s no way he’s walking down eighteen flights of stairs.

His hands are sweating as the lift slides down impossibly slowly. He tries to be subtle when he wipes them on his slacks, but he’s not sure he manages it. He’s not sure why he’s nervous. This should be just like any other day at work, other than the fact that he’s going down to his lab to turn someone into a cyborg.

 _It’s so that I can stop this,_ he reminds himself, willing his lungs to keep expanding at a normal rate. It’s one person for thousands, but he can’t help but feel that it’s not his choice to make. Sacrificing someone else’s life doesn’t feel right.

A young woman with startlingly green hair steps off on B16 and then Hongbin is alone. He thought he would feel better, not being surrounded by people he doesn’t know, but he really doesn’t. The elevator feels suffocating, and he has to watch the walls carefully to convince himself that they’re not actually closing in on him.

The doors slide open finally on his floor and Hongbin stumbles out. He can do this, he _can_. He has to pull it together because Leo is counting on him. He will not let the company continue to hurt people. He thinks about Leo’s lover, who probably has no idea what happened to him. How many other people are like that too? How many people are worried and terrified because the person they loved is gone without a trace?

Hongbin knows how they must feel, and more than anything he wants to bring their loved ones home to them. He’s not a hero, and he’s not a spy. Really, he’s just a mechanic who nearly went crazy and got in over his head in order to cope. He’s probably the last person who should be trying to stop a big corporation from doing whatever they want and squashing whoever they want in the process, but he’s also the only person who has even a little chance of being able to take this operation down. He has to go with what he’s got, even if what he’s got doesn’t feel like much.

His lab is empty, and everything is just the way he left it. There are tiny parts on the floor beneath the worktable and he picks them up absently, sets them back on the tabletop and gazes down at the half-finished arm he was working on before all this shit hit the fan. There are two fingers missing—the one that he snapped off when Wonshik scared him and one that he hadn’t yet attached. He could finish it fairly easily, put it on Model K and offer the bot to his superior and hope it will appease the man. He has a feeling it won’t work, but he could try it.

Or he could stop stalling and go over to his computer terminal to start another project. He could build another bot, give it a model number and a voice chip, and send it off to someone who will use it as if it’s a regular bot, someone who will likely mistreat it because ‘it’s just a pile of parts.’ That person will never know that the robot they ordered has human parts, or that it feels even though it can’t show it. Because it has been programmed not to show emotions, because everything that it once was—the _person_ it once was—has been stripped away by Hongbin’s own hands, hands that he will never be able to wash clean.

He sits down at the terminal, opens the design program. He can’t bring himself to start a new design, and though he has a few that are partially done, in the end he taps the entry for Model K. He doesn’t usually go back to a design after he’s scrapped the bot, even if it’s because of a manufacturing glitch. He puts such careful attention into each bot that it feels wrong to try again when one turns out mangled. Either it works or it doesn’t. Hongbin doesn’t know how to do the in-between.

The machines buzz to life, and Hongbin watches as they pull parts from various bins and start to piece things together. The welder (mostly self-contained to prevent it from burning his retinas) melds the sections seamlessly, like they were one all along. It’s terrifying to watch, because even with his eyes glued to the process, he can’t tell where the human parts come in.

But there have to _be_ human parts. Leo can’t be that much of a fluke. The machines couldn’t have done it on their own, without some sort of instruction, nor would the company decide to make just one cyborg. So it has to happen again, even if Hongbin doesn’t want it to. But it’s well-hidden, what they’re doing, which means that they’ve been planning this for some time, that they wanted all of their engineers to be in the dark about the truth of this project. Hongbin doesn’t blame them. He wouldn’t advertise the fact that he was building cyborgs either.

 

\---

 

Hongbin barely moves for the three hours that it takes the machines to finish Model K. He never fully spots a human part going in, but shudders a few times because he’s sure that’s not what some of the parts looked like before. As far as he can tell, they’ve somehow synthesized metal _into_ the human bits, so it looks like they’ve redesigned the parts when in reality they’ve stolen them.

The robotic arms slide back into hiding and the computer dings at him. ‘Process finished,’ it tells him in its smug silver print. He frowns at it, swiping his finger across the screen to dismiss the message. He looks up, at what he’s just done.

Now comes the hard part.

Checking over a bot is a lot harder when he’s fully aware that it’s not a bot. Snapping his fingers in its face feels condescending, touching it to feel the give of its flesh feels demeaning. He ends up talking while he does it, to make himself feel better or the cyborg, he’s not sure, but either way, “I’m just going to check and make sure your ribs are all in the right place,” makes it seem less intrusive and rude.

He stands facing the cyborg when he requests the speech test, because he didn’t give Leo that courtesy but he’ll be damned if he withholds it from anyone else. If he had known…if he had known he would have done a lot of things differently, starting by getting out of the company when it wasn’t his problem, when he didn’t already have blood on his hands.

“Hi! I’m Ken!” the cyborg chirps cheerfully, smiling at Hongbin with white teeth. Hongbin deflates, feels his shoulders droop and his face fall because this was the last thing he wanted. But it’s done now, and there is definitely something wrong with his computer.

“I’m Hongbin,” he tells it, though he has a feeling that it already knows. He figures he should start calling Ken ‘him’ instead of ‘it’.

“Oh, I know,” Ken replies. He skips over to Hongbin’s worktable, examining the robotic arm with some interest. “You made me, right? I just have one question.”

Hongbin sits on the edge of the computer desk and watches Ken, because what else can he do? “What is it?” he asks. Ken deserves whatever knowledge Hongbin is capable of giving him. It’s the least he can do.

Ken turns back to him, still completely naked and unashamed. “Can you help me get home?”

Hongbin was afraid of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, leaving everything on a cliffhanger! Sorry about that, really. The action is going to start to pick up in the next chapter, hopefully, and you'll start to see a little more of what's going on. Thanks for reading, and as always, please feel free to comment or to come harass me on [tumblr.](http://phantomflutist.tumblr.com)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in this chapter we find out a little more about Wonshik, and things start to move along. We're a long way from the end, and I'm sorry to say that if you're only here for the Rabin romance you're going to be disappointed for a while longer. But I've started Camp Nanowrimo this month, and this is one of my main projects, so hopefully I will be able to keep the chapters coming for the foreseeable future. Please enjoy!

“No, you don’t _understand_ ,” Hongbin tells the IT woman for the third (fourth?) time. “My computer is _broken._ I can’t work like this. You have to send someone down to fix it _right now_.”  
  
She sighs at him. They’re both frustrated, but Hongbin is not inclined to care how she’s feeling because this is a _serious crisis_ , okay? “Look, I’d love to, but the boss has us running diagnostics because of the server crashes, and if we don’t figure out what was causing it by the end of the day then we all get to work on our days off. I have a kid, and our sitter is out of town, so I need this.”  
  
Hongbin feels guilty at once, because not only was the server crash his fault, apparently Wonshik didn’t let him take the fall for it. And now the whole IT department is paying for his fuck-up. “Look, I’m sorry,” he tells her, even though he’s still kind of upset about the whole thing. On the other side of the room Ken is still flouncing around naked, and it kind of looks like he’s playing dolls with Hongbin’s pile of reject bots. How old was this kid when he was taken? “It’s just that if I don’t get a bot turned in by Sunday then I’m going to lose my job.”  
  
She’s quiet for a few long moments, and then finally she accedes, “I’ll see if I can find someone for you, okay? It might be a little bit though.”  
  
Hongbin breathes a sigh of relief, because that was more than he had hoped for. “That’s fine. Thank you so much.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah,” she mutters, hanging up on him.  
  
Hongbin looks over at his new cyborg. He doesn’t want to make another, but he can’t exactly ask Ken to go play a part. It won’t be as simple as shoving a personality chip into his head. He has independent thoughts and feelings, he has his own voice. He’s a _person_ for god’s sake, no matter what he might be made of.  
  
For now Hongbin calls, “Hey, Ken. Let’s get some clothes on you, yeah?”  
  
Ken glances up from Model I, a scrawny thing that only got halfway through construction before the machines mangled its pelvis. Hongbin is grateful that that was before the software upgrade, though for all he knows they’ve been making cyborgs for much longer than that. Still, he’s pretty sure that it’s just a bot, and he’s glad for it. It doesn’t even have legs. “Why do I have to wear clothes? I _like_ being naked,” Ken whines, and Hongbin can’t believe what he’s been saddled with. He’d like Leo back, please.  
  
“We’re having company, okay?” Hongbin replies, trying not to sound like a condescending parent. He just wants Ken to put on some pants, at least.  
  
“So?” Ken blinks at him, and he’s either the most naïve, ignorant person Hongbin has ever met, or he is being a giant pain in the ass. Hongbin is currently inclined to believe the latter.  
  
“Going naked in front of people is rude.” Hongbin disappears into the side room where his cot is before Ken can reply, and ends up being shouted at.  
  
“YOU’RE RUDE!”  
  
Hongbin isn’t sure how old Ken is, but he’s almost positive it can’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen, based on his behavior. He finds a pair of jeans that will hopefully fit Ken, and a plain black t-shirt to go with them, and goes back out into the lab to drop them on Ken’s head.  
  
Ken squawks indignantly and pulls the fabric from his face to screech, “SEE?”  
  
Hongbin drags his rolling chair over to where Ken is sitting and lowers himself onto it. “So,” he says, in as casual a tone as he thinks he can manage, “do you remember anything?”  
  
Ken was working on turning the jeans the right way around so that he could pull them on, but he pauses and puts a thoughtful hand to his chin at the question. “Remember…? I remember hurting a lot, and being in a place that was so white I felt like I was going to go crazy. And then I woke up here, with a whole lot of stuff in my head that I didn’t think had been there before. Can’t be sure, of course, but it’s just a feeling.”  
  
Hongbin nods, trying to look empathetic and understanding. He probably manages vaguely constipated. “That’s it? Do you know how old you are, or if you had any family?”  
  
Ken frowns, tugging at the waistband of the jeans like all of this is their fault. “I don’t know,” he says with a little head shake. His voice is several decibels quieter than it was previously. “I’m sorry, I really don’t know.”  
  
Hongbin pats his head because it seems like the thing to do and promises him, “It’ll come back. It might take some time, but it will. Leo’s memories are, anyway.”  
  
“Leo?” Ken looks up at him and cocks his head. He looks so damn _young_ and Hongbin can’t help regretting again that he did this to him, whether he saved Ken’s life or not.  
  
“He’s nice,” Hongbin tells him, trying to make this even a little bit better. “You’ll like him.”  
  
Ken smiles, and Hongbin thinks that maybe it’ll be okay. They can fix this; they have to.  
  
\---  
  
The IT department sends Wonshik. Luckily, Ken is properly clothed when he gets there, because Wonshik apparently doesn’t feel the need to knock and just waltzes right into Hongbin’s lab. Ken is still playing with the pile of rejects, and Hongbin just hopes that he’ll stay quiet while Wonshik sorts this mess out.  
  
“Hey,” Wonshik greets, smiling at Hongbin when he spots him. Hongbin is sitting at the computer terminal with a cup of coffee, turning slowly around and around on his chair, hoping that Wonshik won’t notice Ken, or at least won’t figure out what’s wrong with him.  
  
Hongbin stops his momentum with a toe to the floor and squeezes out a weak, “Hi.”  
  
“You don’t look so good,” Wonshik comments. He comes over and leans against the desk. From this distance Hongbin can smell his cologne—something musky with a hint of citrus—and see the smudges of dark makeup around his eyes. He’s kind of pretty, in a rugged sort of way.  
  
“Your eyeliner is messed up,” Hongbin says in lieu of a reply. He shoves himself upright, surprised at the amount of effort it takes to get out of his chair. Damn, is he getting old or something?  
  
Wonshik takes the seat Hongbin just vacated, ignoring the comment about his eyeliner. It’s just as well; Hongbin thinks it looks sexy. _Oh god, where did that one come from,_ he thinks in horror. He just took his meds this morning, so it can’t be that. But who knows what’s wrong with him now. He’ll make sure he gets that checked out too, if he ever has the time.  
  
Wonshik is tapping at Hongbin’s computer screen, which is probably doing next to nothing useful. “So what did you say was wrong?” he asks, not actually bothering to look at Hongbin. That’s probably better for them both, considering Hongbin thinks his face might be on fire.  
  
“Um.” How can he say this without sounding completely crazy? _‘My software keeps making cyborgs instead of robots, except they’re supposed to act like robots and they’re not’?_ That’s sure to make Wonshik take this seriously. “I don’t know. It’s just not working.” That’s probably not going to help. Wonshik is probably going to spend a while messing around with it and then he won’t find anything and nothing will get fixed and Hongbin will end up with dozens of cyborgs that he’ll feel personally responsible for and then the company will realize what he’s doing and….  
  
Wonshik turns very slowly to face him, and then stands up, walking closer to Hongbin until he starts to get uncomfortable. He takes a step backwards, running into the worktable, which in turn is pressed against the wall, but Wonshik just keeps closing the gap between them until their chests are practically touching, and then he leans over to whisper in Hongbin’s ear. “Does this have something to do with Leo, perhaps? And with the kid in the corner over there?”  
  
Hongbin’s blood turns to ice and he stops breathing. Oh god, Wonshik knows. He is so fucked. “U-um, actually, I—“  
  
Wonshik’s hand clamps tightly over Hongbin’s bicep, and he continues like he hadn’t actually wanted an answer. “Because I’m betting it does. Because that’s exactly what I wanted.”  
  
Shit. This is definitely not good. “W-what do you mean, exactly?” Hongbin asks. He’s not sure where he gets the breath for it, but his voice is suspiciously high. Who _is_ Wonshik?  
  
When Wonshik pulls away a little he’s smiling, but his hand is still a vice around Hongbin’s arm. He glances at Ken, and then pulls Hongbin into the side room. He sits them down on the cot there, and he studies Hongbin’s face for several long, terribly uncomfortable moments before he finally asks, “Now do you wanna talk about it?”  
  
Hongbin has a flashback to the bathroom, and though it was just yesterday it feels like weeks ago.  
  
 _“Wanna talk about it?”_  
  
 _“Not really.”_  
  
 _“You sure? I might understand better than you think.”_  
  
 _“If I tell you, does that make it go away?”_  
  
All of this is happening too quickly for him. “Are you…?” He lets the question trail for a minute, before he changes it to a statement. “You know. You’ve known all along, haven’t you?”  
  
Wonshik nods. He opens his mouth to explain, but there’s something Hongbin needs to know first, before anything else.  
  
“Were you in on it?”  
  
What he gets in reply is a firm headshake. “Lemme explain,” Wonshik insists. He looks around, checking the corners of the ceiling and the tiny spaces beside the bed.  
  
“There are no cameras in here,” Hongbin tells him. “It was part of my contract, and I double-check for bugs regularly.”  
  
Wonshik raises an eyebrow at that, and Hongbin knows that he will probably have questions about it later, but right now is about Wonshik answering some of Hongbin’s questions, like what he has to do with what’s happening here. “I’m…well, it doesn’t matter what I am, but a few months ago I got a call from a concerned party. Something strange was happening at JF industries and they needed someone to look into it…discreetly. So I took a job here and started digging. And if it weren’t for my particular skill set I probably wouldn’t have found anything. It was hidden behind firewalls and encryptions a hundred layers thick, but there it was: they were building cyborgs.”  
  
Hongbin sighs at the melodramatic-ness of it all, and says, because he can tell that Wonshik is waiting for it, “And I take it that your concerned party wasn’t happy about that?”  
  
“No. But neither was I. Because they weren’t just altering people illegally, they were doing it against their will and then taking _away_ their free will. They were selling them as toys. I can’t imagine….” He reaches up at this point and fingers the shaven hair just behind his right ear. Hongbin squints at him. His head hurts, and he really wants Wonshik to get to the point.  
  
“I figured that bit out on my own. So if you’ve known for months, why haven’t you done anything to stop it?” That’s the frustrating part. If someone who’s apparently trained for this sort of thing hasn’t managed to take the company down, then maybe there’s no hope. Hongbin is certainly not cut out for this. He used to just be a mechanic. He didn’t do anything complicated, he didn’t have to think so hard, and if he was having a really hard day, he didn’t even have to talk to anyone besides her. He shakes himself out of the memories before he gets in too deep.  
  
“Months?” Wonshik snorts, “It took me months just to get through their encryption. I only finally made it a week ago, and there was still more work to be done from there.” He glances at Hongbin and then looks away like a spot on the wall is suddenly very interesting.  
  
Hongbin frowns at him. He wants to snap his fingers in Wonshik’s face to get his attention like he does with the bots, but that isn’t very nice and is very unlike him. He refrains.  
  
“One of the things I needed was an in to the manufacturing process. Someone who understood it and could help me dissect it.” Hongbin winces at the wording of that particular sentence. Hearing the word ‘dissect’ in reference to his work makes him think of dissecting the bots, and that is not something he wants to do now. “I had to find someone who worked closely with the bots, someone who would sympathize with my cause. I researched all the engineers, and some…interesting stuff came up in reference to your name.”  
  
No. No, Hongbin cannot do this. He can’t listen to Wonshik list all the events in his life that have brought him here. He can’t pretend that it doesn’t affect him still. He can’t keep on living if he has to remember what he’s lost.  
  
But Wonshik doesn’t list it, he doesn’t say anything about what he found, instead he says, “You looked like my best chance, so I took a risk. I made some alterations to your software when I installed it. It’s not…I thought you would notice with the first bot, but…you made another? Was Leo not enough to convince you?”  
  
“It’s not that,” Hongbin replies. How does he begin to explain what he and Leo had planned? The problem is that they _didn’t_ have a plan. They had a vague notion that they really needed to do something about this, and the certainty that Hongbin would have to keep his job in order to do that. That was as far as they’d gotten. It’s all he has to offer. “Leo and I want to fix this,” he explains lamely. “But I had to keep my job, so I made Ken. But he’s just a kid! I have to get him home somehow.”  
  
Wonshik smiles at him, wide and genuine, and he claps Hongbin on the back. “I can take care of that. Come on.” He heads back out into the lab and plops himself down in the computer chair, taking to the keyboards right away. He slides in and out of programs and windows almost faster than Hongbin can follow, and he wonders how Wonshik can even see what he’s doing. But soon he makes a triumphant noise and pumps his fist in the air, then brandishes the screen for Hongbin to examine.  
  
It’s the activity log, and the entry for Ken is open. It looks completely normal, and Hongbin can’t tell what Wonshik has done. “Wanna clue me in?” he asks, because he honestly has no idea what’s going on.  
  
“I put him back in the database,” Wonshik explains, looking smugly proud of himself.  
  
“WHAT?” Hongbin explodes, about ready to punch Wonshik in the face. “That is the exact opposite of what I wanted to do!”  
  
Wonshik stands, hands up in a placating gesture. “Hear me out, okay? I have someone—a buyer—who will purchase him, and—hey!”  
  
Hongbin has Wonshik by the front of the shirt and he is very close to Wonshik’s face. It’s probably not wise to beat people up in his lab, but Hongbin doesn’t really care about that just now. “You’re going to do _what_ with the kid?” he grits out. Wonshik had better have a pretty damned good explanation for this one.  
  
“And we’ll find his family and get him home!” Wonshik finishes. Hongbin releases him and he fusses over his dress shirt, complaining, “This is one of my favorites.”  
  
“You could have led off with that,” Hongbin chides, fiercely acting like he didn’t do anything wrong. His stomach feels like it’s eating itself with guilt, but he did it for Ken. The kid doesn’t deserve anything worse than what he’s already gotten.  
  
“Um.” Ken comes up to Hongbin’s side at this point and takes his hand, leaning his head on Hongbin’s shoulder. He’s tall, but he acts like he’s so small, like he’s not used to this big body. Hongbin doesn’t even know if Ken looks anything like he used to. Hongbin designed him, so does that mean he doesn’t? He’s just lucky he didn’t accidentally make Ken or Leo a girl instead of a boy. Of course, Hongbin doesn’t make girls, not since…never mind. “I’m tired,” Ken says, closing his eyes and rubbing them against Hongbin’s sweater.  
  
 _That’s new._ Maybe Ken is malfunctioning, or maybe he’s just different from Leo. Who knows? “There’s a cot in the other room,” Hongbin tells him gently, reaching up to ruffle the kid’s hair. “Go take a nap for a while, maybe you’ll feel better.”  
  
Ken nods, and then tips his face up expectantly. Hongbin isn’t sure what he wants. Ken pouts and presses a finger to his own cheek, demanding, “Kiss.”  
  
This is not familiar territory. Ken is like a small child, and Hongbin has never been good with those. Sure, they’re fun to look at, but he didn’t think he’d ever have any of his own, so he never bothered to really get comfortable around them. Still, he wants to make this as easy for Ken as possible, so he drops a kiss to his cheek and then ruffles his hair again. “Get some sleep,” he says. If it’s not fond, he hopes that it’s at least kind. He wants to be kind to Ken, to make him feel like someone cares about him. God knows it doesn’t seem like it right now.  
  
“You’re good with them,” Wonshik comments. He’s just watching Hongbin, his eyes dark with something unreadable.  
  
Hongbin doesn’t know whether to feel flattered or not. “Not really. I don’t know what I’m doing.”  
  
“Nah,” says Wonshik, waving it off. “See, some people can’t handle interacting with cyborgs at all. They’re unusual, you know? Freaks people out because they can’t figure out whether they’re talking to a man or a machine. You, though….” He stares at Hongbin again thoughtfully as he formulates his next sentence. “You just automatically treat them like a person. Even when you thought Leo was a bot you were still gentle with him, at least compared to most people. You’re a good guy.”  
  
“I’m not,” Hongbin insists again. He doesn’t want to get into this. It’s really not a good place for him to go and he’s not sure if he’ll get out again once he goes there. “I just…have more experience in this than some. Bots may not be human, but they still react differently to you based on the way you treat them. And cyborgs are human, they’re just…more. They live longer, they’re stronger, their minds work faster, but they still have thoughts and emotions. Sometimes they even have too many, and the weight of it drives them mad.”  
  
Wonshik hasn’t taken his eyes off Hongbin, and it’s making him spectacularly uncomfortable. What are the chances that he could teleport out of here right now? “You know a lot about them.”  
  
Hongbin shrugs, tries to stay casual about it. But he’s so stiff that it comes out awkward, his movements jerky. “I have a little experience. So, what exactly is the plan, beyond getting Ken home?”  
  
“Ah,” Wonshik says, and Hongbin is so, _so_ grateful that he accepted the subject change. “That’s gonna take a while. How long do you have?”  
  
All day, apparently. Hongbin pulls over a little-used chair and settles in for a long talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end! I mean, wait...there will be more next week. Please leave me comments or kudos or come harass me on [tumblr](http://phantomflutist.tumblr.com/) if you want. Every time someone acknowledges me my insides melt a little bit.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have about a thousand things I want to say to you guys, but I'm gonna hold it all in for a bit, because you'll see as we get a little farther into the story. I'm absolutely loving the response to this and all of the theories you guys have shared with me. Every time I read a comment I get to cackle a little bit because you have absolutely no idea what's coming and it's beautiful. But please feel free to continue sharing your theories; I love it. Enjoy!

“So basically,” Hongbin says, after listening to Wonshik talk for over an hour, “what you’re saying is that you have about as much of a plan as I did.”  
  
Wonshik snorts, his facing contorting unattractively. “I have agents on the inside, people who are bringing me information. Taking a company down like this takes time, takes blackmail or evidence, whichever is easier to obtain or will get the best result. I know you want it to stop now, I get it.” He reaches out for Hongbin’s hand and squeezes it, blushing as he does so like he’s not sure that he should. “But if we’re gonna do it right, if we’re actually gonna change anything, we’ve gotta be smart about it.”  
  
Hongbin takes a deep breath, and glances at the doorway to the side room, where Ken is sleeping, occasionally making soft shuffling noises and sighing to himself. “Okay,” he agrees, squeezing Wonshik’s hand back and then letting go. Wonshik retracts his fingers, looking sheepish, and Hongbin tries to smile at him. He’s not good at smiling, hasn’t done it much in a very long time, but he tries because he needs Wonshik’s help. “So what, you need me to keep making cyborgs? Is that going to help anything?”  
  
Wonshik shakes his head. “Probably not,” he admits surprisingly easily, “but you can get us information that we wouldn’t have otherwise, help us figure out how they’re doing it without the engineers knowing. And every cyborg you make is someone we can save, like Ken and Leo. We can get them back to their families, help them rebuild their lives. Because of the way I programmed your software, none of them have to be mindless toys.”  
  
“Okay,” Hongbin says again. He’s not sure he can do this, not sure he wants to make more people into cyborgs. Saving their lives or not, helping them go back to their families or not, it still feels inherently wrong. But Wonshik is right. If they’re going to fix things then they need more information than they have. And there’s another thing. “I don’t even know if they look anything like they used to. I designed bots, I didn’t….” He doesn’t know if he can finish the sentence. _I didn’t design_ people.  
  
“They won’t look like they did,” Wonshik says. “But I tried to program the equipment to leave some things the same. If we’re lucky, their families will be able to tell who they are, at least.” He stands up. He’s been here for way too long, and the rest of IT will probably be upset with him when he gets back. Hongbin feels guilty for keeping him for so long. “Just…do what you can for now, okay? I’ll come back later and we’ll get Ken ready to go.”  
  
“Alright,” Hongbin agrees. He watches Wonshik walk away, and when he’s at the door Hongbin suddenly remembers something and calls out, “Wait! Why didn’t you let me take the fall for the broken data card?”  
  
Wonshik looks back at him with one hand on the door handle, his mouth pulled down at the corners and a surprisingly weary expression on his face. “Because we all have secrets, and things that we’ve done that we’re not proud of. I’m not exactly a saint either, Hongbin.” He slips out then, his footsteps light on the concrete floor until they’re blocked out by the heavy steel of the door.  
  
Hongbin can’t help but think that Wonshik seems to know a lot more about him than he’s letting on.  
  
\---  
  
Hongbin leans against the doorway into the side room and watches Ken sleep. He’s so innocent, so calm when he’s like this. Hongbin still can’t believe the things that he’s done to him, and to Leo. He never wanted anyone to get hurt. He started this job because he was tired of pain and sadness and grief. He started this job because it was that or get falling-over drunk every night so that he could forget, but he’d tried that and it hadn’t worked; every new morning had still greeted him with sunshine and with memories.  
  
Hongbin doesn’t want anyone else to have painful memories that they just want to forget. He wants Ken to have happy, cheerful memories, of doing things that young people are supposed to do like dating and playing sports and spending the entire school prom gaming with his friends on their handhelds while their dates dance. He wants Leo to have memories of cuddling with his lover, of having dinner together and then bumping hips as they help each other clean up. More than anything, Hongbin doesn’t want anyone to hurt the way that he has.  
  
But Leo and Ken were already hurting before Hongbin and the company got to them. Maybe this isn’t a good solution—heaven knows Hongbin can still feel the blood on his hands, no matter what anyone tells him—but it’s what they’ve got now, and if they can find their families and have another chance at life, then maybe what’s happened to them can be worth it, at least.  
  
It’s what she would have wanted, Hongbin doing something to help other people for once. He’s never been very good at thinking about anyone but himself. Part of that is because every time he has, he’s ended up hurting. But another part is just plain selfishness, and Hongbin doesn’t want to be selfish anymore. He’s spent far too much of his life wallowing in his own pain.  
  
He pushes off from the doorframe and goes back into his lab. There are bot parts and bits of scrap metal scattered all over, amid empty coffee mugs and forgotten tools. He’s never been good at cleaning up after himself. He never had to be, until he lost her. But with who knows how many hours to wait until Wonshik comes back to help him with Ken, Hongbin realizes that he has nothing but time.  
  
Hongbin is not the type to sit idle, not anymore. Every time he lets himself rest he ends up lost in his memories, and he can’t do that, especially not now. It hurts too badly, sets him back too far, and makes him more useless than he already is.  
  
So the logical solution is to find something to work on. He starts picking up scrap to toss in the bin, clearing empty coffee mugs to be washed, and returning tools and viable parts to their proper places. In less than an hour, all that’s left to contend with is the pile of reject bots.  
  
There’s actually procedure for how to handle rejects, not that Hongbin has ever been very good at following any of the company guidelines. But he doesn’t have anything better to do with a pile of half-mangled robots, so he picks one up and hauls it over to the machine. He’s pretty sure that he can still trust his computer to dismantle a bot properly.  
  
But as he’s activating the electromagnets, a voice behind him screams, “NO!”  
  
Hongbin turns around to raise an eyebrow at Ken, who is standing in the doorway to the other room panting like he’s just run a marathon. He’s disheveled from sleep, his hair kind of flat on one side and creases from the pillow pressed into his face. He looks so _human_.  
  
“No,” Ken repeats. He steps further into the room, approaching Hongbin like he’s going to physically restrain him if necessary. “You can’t kill them. They’re my friends!”  
  
Hongbin flinches at the use of the word ‘kill,’ and has to remind himself again that he made these bots before the software upgrade. They’re just hunks of metal and wiring. “Ken,” he says, trying to find a way to explain it so that Ken won’t hate him forever. “They’re not like you. They were never alive.”  
  
Ken’s arms cross and he pouts fiercely at Hongbin. “Just because they’re made of metal doesn’t mean they’re not people,” he argues.  
  
Hongbin turns to give a long, hard look to the bot on the stand. It’s Model I, its pelvis mangled and irredeemable. Just a few hours ago Hongbin had been glad that it wasn’t a cyborg because he didn’t want anyone to suffer through something like that. It wasn’t activated, couldn’t talk and didn’t have any feelings that Hongbin was aware of. But then, in the last two days he’d discovered to be true a lot of things that he had never thought would happen, so maybe it wasn’t such a long reach to think that even robots had emotions.  
  
It takes several long moments of thought, of examining this bot with his eyes and admitting to himself that if it does have any sort of emotions, he put it through torture. And he will never forgive himself for that. Finally, he says to Ken, “Alright. What do you want me to do, then?”  
  
Ken puts his hands on his hips and crows triumphantly for several painful seconds, and then he declares, “Let’s fix it!”  
  
Hongbin resigns himself to a very long day.  
  
\---  
  
Ken has no knowledge of how to fix bots. So he sits on the extra chair and bounces excitedly while he watches Hongbin remove Model I’s mangled pelvis and start building it a new one by hand. Hongbin may be willing to humor Ken and repair his reject bots, and he may feel bad for mistreating them in the first place, but no way is he letting the machines touch them and risking them using human parts on these, too. He has no idea how the software is designed to handle repairs and he really doesn’t want to find out through trial and error.  
  
So he’s welding pieces together and adjusting ridiculously tiny screws and cursing a lot in the process, even though every time a swear word slips out of his mouth Ken lets out a scandalized little gasp and snaps, “Language!” The first time it happened he actually smacked Hongbin’s arm, which made the welder slip and he almost burnt himself, which only caused more swearing. Ken hasn’t done that again, at least.  
  
Hongbin’s gotten through attaching the pelvis and has started work on the right leg when Wonshik returns. Hongbin jumps up immediately to greet him, because he normally loves his work but Ken is being _insufferable_ with constant questions and if Hongbin never has to see him again after this it will be too soon.  
  
Wonshik smiles at Hongbin and pats his shoulder, and then he turns to Ken and his smile gains a few watts. “Are you ready to put on a show?” he asks.  
  
Ken bounces and nods excitedly, maybe not exactly sure what’s going on. But Wonshik’s smile is infectious, and it’s like he brightens up the whole room. Hongbin watches from the sidelines as Wonshik calmly explains to Ken that he’s going to activate something in his head that will put little robotic-looking screens in front of his eyes.  
  
Ken’s face twists up in distaste. “Is it going to hurt?” he asks.  
  
Wonshik shakes his head, keeps that blinding smile on his face, and assures Ken, “Nope. It’ll just get you past inspection so we can get you out of here. Sound good?”  
  
Ken nods a bit, but he still flinches away from Wonshik when he first approaches him.  
  
Wonshik pauses and waits for Ken to move back toward him before he attempts to touch him again. “It’s okay,” he reassures him again. “It’s normal to be scared. But it’s only gonna be for a little while and then we’re gonna get you back home, okay?”  
  
Ken’s nod this time is a bit more firm, and he steps forward into Wonshik’s outstretched fingers, allowing him to press a small node with a few blinking purple lights to his temple. From the angle he’s standing at, Hongbin can just barely see the metallic blue shields sliding down over Ken’s eyes.  
  
“Whoa,” Ken says as soon as they’re in place. He’s turning his head, trying to look at everything in the lab at once. “Everything looks weird.”  
  
Wonshik chuckles and leans back against the desk. “It will until we remove the screens. Everything feel okay otherwise?”  
  
Ken bounces, still observing his surroundings like an interested child. He is so full of life, and Hongbin cannot believe that Ken was ever a dying patient in a hospital. A chilling thought strikes him: what if those memories were manufactured, just in case, so that the cyborgs would accept their fate? Hongbin shudders with the thought, even as Ken chirps, “Yep! All ready to go!”  
  
“You’re going to have to act the part of an obedient android for a little while. Can you do that?” Wonshik asks. He’s watching Ken with an indulgent smile on his face. “Because if you can’t, I have tools for that too, but it won’t be fun.”  
  
Ken focuses for a moment and seems to ponder this, the first bout of serious thought that Hongbin has seen in him. Hongbin doubts that it will last. Eventually, Ken pulls himself up to his full, considerable height, and assures Wonshik, “I can do it.”  
  
Wonshik nods once in acknowledgement and turns to Hongbin. “Time to put in a call to your boss, yeah?”  
  
Hongbin nods in reply. Yes, it’s time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Next chapter will be out next week as usual, and in the meantime you're welcome to leave me a comment or kudos or come visit me on [tumblr.](http://phantomflutist.tumblr.com)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nearly 4k words and this is all one scene. Oops. But things happen! There are philosophical discussions! Etc.! Please enjoy.

Hongbin’s superior is downright _astonished_ that Hongbin has managed to complete anything, and demonstrates extreme reluctance to haul his lazy ass all the way down to B18 for ‘one measly _fucking_ bot.’ But Hongbin is insistent, inasmuch as he is able, and finally the older man says, “You know what? Fine. I’ll come see your stupid fucking bot so you can keep playing in your lab and pretending that you’re a useful engineer, because for some reason the higher-ups want to keep you around. ‘ _Innovative ideas_ ’ my ass.” The last is mumbled just before the line disconnects, and likely not meant for Hongbin to hear.  
  
 _Innovative ideas;_ it’s what got him hired. They pulled him out of the mud of who he was and shoved him into a lab: allowed him to play god. He was the best in the business, his bots sold for hundreds of thousands of credits, and each and every damn one of them was unique. But that was before, when he cared, when he was fighting tooth and nail to bring her back even as he knew that he would never be able to. His memories of that time are hazy, but he knows that he was rarely sober. Alcohol or pills, he used whatever he could get his hands on to dim the pain. It never worked.  
  
It was around the time that he started turning to other methods of control that his work stopped seeming so important. He was never going to bring her back, they would never _let him_ , so he may as well stop trying. The agony of losing her and his inability to exact revenge on the ones who had taken her from him consumed him constantly, and the numbness of alcohol wasn’t enough. As he fell headlong into his last resort, he gave up every semblance of caring about his job.  
  
To be honest, he isn’t sure why the higher-ups even care about him still. Maybe they hold out hope that someday he’ll start making them the big bucks again. Maybe it’s just easier to keep tabs on him if he’s here, rather than possibly working for another company. Maybe he’ll never know, and maybe it’s better that way. He hates them, has hated everyone and _everything_ for years, ever since he lost her. That hate isn’t as burning and urgent now, but he still feels it sometimes, when he’s reminded of what he lost.  
  
But then he sees people like Wonshik, like Ken and Leo, and thinks that maybe, maybe there’s still a little hope for humanity. He wonders what it would be like if they could just start over, press a giant reset button and return the whole planet to factory settings. Would they get it right the next time? Would anything be different at all? Even if it wasn’t, he would have another chance with her, however fleeting and tragic. He wants that, desperately, so much that feelings he thought he’d locked away emerge and overwhelm him and—  
  
“Hongbin?”  
  
Wonshik is in front of him, waving his hand in front of Hongbin’s face. His eyebrows are pinched together, worried creases pressed into the space between them. Hongbin reaches out, as if to smooth them, and realizes that his hand is shaking. When was the last time he ate? Everything feels shivery and out of focus, and Wonshik’s face, so close to his own, is the only thing that’s clear.  
  
“You okay?” Wonshik asks, not moving closer or trying to touch Hongbin, just watching him with carefully guarded eyes. “Your boss will be here soon. I was going to pretend to fix your computer, give you an excuse for the lack of bots.”  
  
“Yeah,” Hongbin lets out on a shaky breath. He doesn’t make it out of the chair on the first try, but does on the second, steadying himself with a hand on Wonshik’s shoulder. Wonshik flinches at the touch but doesn’t pull away. “I’ve got this,” he continues, mostly to himself. “I’m totally fine, everything is fine, they’re not going to find out and turn us all into cyborgs.”  
  
Wonshik makes a… _weird_ face at that, but Hongbin doesn’t have time right now to figure out what it means, because his door chimes. “ _Shit_ ,” Hongbin says with feeling. “Right, places everyone.” He sees Wonshik park himself in front of the terminal and open something that’s just rows and rows of text. Across the desk, Ken positions himself just in front of the bot stand, stands up perfectly straight, and freezes like that. It’s eerie and slightly terrifying, but Hongbin doesn’t have time to analyze that more either. Instead he calls out weakly, “Enter.”  
  
The door creaks as it opens itself for Hongbin’s boss, a short, thin man with blue artificial hair implants. Hongbin knows it’s fake because two years ago the man was gray and balding, with weird patches of hair growing at his temples and along the back of his head, but none in the space just above his ears. He was also a tier lower on the managerial tree, and not paid well enough for implants of any quality. They had showed up abruptly exactly one pay period after his promotion to his current position.  
  
“Sir,” Hongbin says, attempting to defer to the older man in spite of the ridiculous impulse to reach out and tweak at those blue strands, just to see if they stay. Maybe he needs to have his dosage upped, because he’s getting really strange. That or he just needs a normal diet and regular sleep. That would probably help, or would at least stop the room from swaying dangerously as he turns to stride over to Ken. The sooner he gets this over with, the sooner they can all go home.  
  
The other man follows him and mercifully says nothing about Wonshik sitting at Hongbin’s computer console. Instead he stops directly in front of Ken and stares at him. His face takes on a pinched look, like he’s smelled something foul, and he asks, “Why is it wearing clothes?”  
  
 _Shit._ Hongbin freezes, one hand halfway up from his side, though he’s not sure what he was planning to do with it. He trembles bodily, like he’s lost control over all of his muscles, and he can’t think of a thing to say. They haven’t even started and they’re already caught.  
  
“Sorry,” Wonshik’s voice cuts in. Hongbin looks over, and Wonshik is giving Hongbin’s boss a disarming smile. It’s not the smile he’s given Hongbin, the one where his cheeks squeeze up so far that his eyes squint closed. But it’s sweet and friendly, maybe even a little flirtatious. Hongbin wonders how many people Wonshik has flirted with just to get what he wants. Is it ever real? “It’s my fault. I was working on the computer and it was just…standing there. It was starting to freak me out, so I asked Hongbin to put some clothes on it.”  
  
Hongbin’s boss just frowns harder, but he turns back to Ken and orders, “Well, get them off it, then. I need to know that this thing will actually _work_.” The way he says ‘work’ implies that none of Hongbin’s previous bots have been functional, which is a lie. He’s made plenty of bots that _worked_ but none of them have been up to their standards anyway, for reasons that he knows now.  
  
Hongbin doesn’t want to do that to Ken, regardless of Ken’s level of comfort being naked, but if it means that they can get Ken home, maybe the little bit of embarrassment will be worth it. He snaps his fingers near Ken’s face, whispering apologies in his head, and orders, “Clothes off.”  
  
Ken does it immediately, pulling the shirt off and dropping the jeans to the floor. He shows no sign of discomfort, but then he knows how important it is that he act like a bot. He stands there with the jeans around his ankles, staring straight ahead. It’s _comical_ , and Hongbin has to fight back giggles. It shouldn’t be funny, he reminds himself. This is a very serious situation and it is imperative that his boss not suspect a thing.  
  
The older man goes through the examination procedures, just as Hongbin has always done them. The only difference is that he is much rougher with Ken than Hongbin would ever be, cyborg or not. And Hongbin can see how hard Ken is working not to show that the man’s touch makes him uncomfortable, but when he’s bent down, his blue hair near Ken’s knees as he inspects Ken’s leg joints, Ken pulls a face that completely embodies Hongbin’s emotions as well: eyebrows drawn together, eyes screwed up, and a grimace complete with stuck-out tongue.  
  
It’s gone as soon as he made it, as Hongbin’s boss straightens again and huffs a grumpy but impressed affirmation. All that’s left is the speech test, and Hongbin prays that Ken knows what to do, that he’ll be able to pull it off without getting caught.  
  
“Speak,” Hongbin’s boss snaps, his voice gruff and unkind. Hongbin winces at the tone, at the indignity of it. It hurts to think of that tone being used on people, and Hongbin wonders if he’s ever done it, if he’s ever spoken that way to a cyborg or an android or to anyone at all. He hopes he hasn’t, because after all this, after everything he’s done, it’s just one more thing he’ll never forgive himself for.  
  
Ken avoids making any reaction at all to the words or the tone, other than to obediently start the speech test. “Android model 2m19H, designation K,” he says, his voice somehow taking on that stilted, awkward lilt that all bots have. Hongbin doesn’t know how Ken knows how to do that but he’s just glad he does. “Product of JF Industries. Engineer: Lee Hongbin. Status: awaiting supervisor approval.”  
  
Hongbin lets out the breath he was holding very slowly and quietly. His boss sniffs pointedly and then turns to nod at Hongbin. “Fine,” he says. “You can keep your fucking job. But you’re on probation for the next month. Get me more like this or you’re out.” He steps over to the computer terminal and waits, looking self-important and like Hongbin is wasting his time. _Right, the approval documents._ It’s been so long since Hongbin has done this that he’d forgotten.  
  
Wonshik is already vacating the chair, letting Hongbin sit and pull up the correct application. After that it’s the work of a moment for his boss to press a finger to the print scanner and just like that Ken is ready to be sold.  
  
 _It’s over,_ Hongbin thinks, watching his boss snap at Ken and order him to follow as he heads for the door. But Hongbin should know that with this man it’s never that simple, he always has to throw in some parting shot. He turns at the threshold and, drawing himself up a little taller, says, “If you spent more time doing your job and less time fucking the IT staff, you wouldn’t be in this position.” With that, he turns on his heel and flounces out, and the door shuts itself behind him.  
  
The silence rings for a few moments afterwards. Hongbin can feel how tense he is and can’t do a damned thing about it because Wonshik is still here and fuck, that was the worst thing his boss could have said because it wasn’t just a dig at Hongbin.  
  
“He’s moving,” Wonshik says. He’s leaning back against the edge of the desk just to Hongbin’s left. If Hongbin shifted his hand just a little it would be brushing Wonshik’s leg. He firmly does not do that, and instead looks up at Wonshik, wondering what he’s talking about. “If they take him right to sales you have maybe twenty minutes. Don’t lose him.”  
  
Oh, Wonshik is on a phone call. Of course, he’d have to let his buyer know that Ken is on his way, so they can buy him before someone else does. God, Hongbin can just imagine the mess that would cause.  
  
Wonshik is quiet for a while, and then he says, “Yeah, okay. Keep me updated,” and disconnects the call. He turns to Hongbin with what Hongbin thinks is supposed to be a reassuring smile and says, “Well, we did it.”  
  
Yes they did. But Hongbin still wonders if it was right—forcing Ken to pretend to be a bot, sending him off like that with the hope that their buyer will be able to get to him before anyone else, gambling that they’ll be able to find his family when he doesn’t even remember if he had any. Hongbin’s hands are shaking and his head hurts and Leo is at his apartment waiting for him, probably starting to get worried. Hongbin hopes he hasn’t been cleaning this whole time. Whether Leo likes it or not, Hongbin doesn’t feel worthy of that level of dedication, doesn’t know what he’ll do if he returns home to a spotless apartment.  
  
“You okay?” Wonshik asks. His voice is low and gentle and he’s kneeling in front of Hongbin, looking up at him from the floor between his feet.  
  
Hongbin takes a very slow, very shaky breath, and admits, “No.”  
  
“Okay,” Wonshik replies. He takes Hongbin’s shaking hands in his and asks, “When was the last time you ate?”  
  
Hongbin is pretty sure that the coffee he had this morning doesn’t count. Neither does the glass of water with his medication, or the pills themselves. He tries to remember when he last had actual food. It has definitely been too long, he decides. “I don’t remember,” he tells Wonshik.  
  
Wonshik just nods, reaches around Hongbin to shut down his computer terminal, and pulls him to his feet. “We’re going out for dinner,” he decides, “and then I’m gonna take you home. That’s where Leo is, yeah?”  
  
Hongbin nods at him, sort of vaguely. The room is floaty and his balance is all wrong. He lets Wonshik hold him up and hopes that he’s not being too rude.  
  
“Good,” Wonshik says. They’re moving, heading for the door of Hongbin’s lab. “I want to talk to him, see if we can help him get home, too.”  
  
Hongbin thinks that sounds great, because then he won’t be responsible for Leo anymore. He never wanted to make Leo a cyborg, so he shouldn’t have to look after him for the rest of his life, should he? That hardly seems fair. Hongbin shouldn’t be allowed to take care of people anyway, it doesn’t go well. Look at what happened the last time, what he was reduced to afterwards. He’s surprised there’s anything of him left, after all that. He’s surprised that he still has the capacity to feel anything for anyone anymore.  
  
His stomach swoops, and he realizes they’re on the elevator. He’s not sure when they got here, doesn’t remember walking down the long, long hallway from his lab to the elevator bank, but they’re here now, the two of them squeezed into this small space and breathing in the stale air and Wonshik humming along to the terrible elevator music. Hongbin doesn’t know how he can be so relaxed. Elevators make Hongbin nervous. People make Hongbin nervous. Pretty much everything makes Hongbin nervous these days, and makes his hands shake and his head hurt and his whole body betray him.  
  
Not even his mind is his own anymore, he doesn’t think. He’s not sure what this is, where this fog that doesn’t let him think about anything that he wants to think about came from, but it’s in his head and eating away at all of the good thoughts until he’s stuck with a mantra he doesn’t remembering writing: _you’re a failure, you’re a failure, you’re a failure._  
  
But the worst part is that even though he doesn’t remember writing it, he can’t seem to disprove it either. What has he ever done right, his whole life? His whole family is dead, and the one woman that he loved…he lost his shop, ended up working for a big corporation, and now he can’t even keep that job. What’s left? He’s already a drunk and a nervous wreck and losing his mind. He’s already….  
  
“We’re here,” Wonshik’s voice murmurs, and Hongbin looks up and they’re stepping out into the lobby. There are two friendly bots running the front desk, females with bright blond hair tied back in tight, high tails. There’s a potted plant in the corner, missing its older male companion today. And there are doors, two sets of them one after the other to help seal out the smoggy air. Wonshik continues murmuring to him, leading Hongbin to the doors, slipping a mask over his face for him, tugging him outside into the poisonous air.  
  
They don’t go far, stepping into a café that boasts the best breakfast bagels in Seoul. Hongbin can’t be sure, because he hasn’t been so good with time lately (or ever), but he’s fairly certain that it’s not breakfast time.  
  
Wonshik orders them bagels anyway, waves Hongbin away when he tries to press his finger to the scanner to pay. Hongbin has more than enough money—he’s been working for the company for _years_ and has barely spent a credit—but Wonshik insists on treating him, so Hongbin shrugs and lets himself be led to a table, deposited in a chair.  
  
It’s easy to let Wonshik take care of things. Hongbin hasn’t had anyone to take care of him in a very long time, and he had forgotten what it was like. He wonders what other things he’s missing, what person he could be if it weren’t for the people he never had in his life.  
  
This place smells heavenly, and Hongbin finally realizes just how hungry he is. How did he not notice this for…four days, at least? It feels like his stomach is folding in on itself, desperate for something to eat, anything at all, even itself.  
  
Wonshik sets a bagel—stuffed with meat and cheese and smelling even more heavenly for its close proximity—in front of Hongbin and orders, “Eat.”  
  
Hongbin doesn’t need to be told again. He devours it, and the fruit smoothie that Wonshik gives him, and then stares longingly at Wonshik’s bagel until he surrenders that as well and goes to get himself another. He comes back with dessert too, some sort of ice cream concoction with cookies and chocolate and nuts. Hongbin hasn’t eaten anything in four days, but he hasn’t eaten like _this_ in years. After her…he stopped indulging in things like this. It didn’t matter and he was so focused on work to keep himself sane and he honestly just barely thought of food most of the time.  
  
But this, this is the best thing he’s ever tasted, and he is very, very content right now.  
  
It lasts for about three minutes, before he remembers Leo and Ken and the company he works for making cyborgs and Wonshik sitting across the table from him looking highly amused and Hongbin pauses to let all of it sink in.  
  
It’s fucking shitty, is what it is. He went years without dealing with anything outside of himself and his lab. He made bots and his boss came to take them and that was all he had to do, that was the only person he ever had to interact with. And now there’s this, and he’s helping Wonshik with an insane mission, and he’s not entirely certain that he even knows what he’s doing or if it’s worth it, except when he thinks of Leo and Ken and all the other people who are being taken from the people they love. Hongbin knows what that’s like, and doesn’t want it to happen to anyone else.  
  
Hongbin wipes his mouth with a napkin, pushes the empty bowl away, and says, “We should go.”  
  
“You’re back to normal, then?” Wonshik asks. “I thought maybe you were stuck like that.”  
  
Hongbin can feel himself flushing, but instead of responding he stands and goes for the door. Leo is waiting for him, and he can only hope that Leo doesn’t get hungry like normal people, because otherwise he is probably terribly upset right now.  
  
Wonshik is on his heels, reaching around Hongbin to hold the door open for him. Hongbin slides the crisp white mask over his own face this time, facing the smoggy air with the calm of a seasoned veteran going into battle. He can do this. He _can._ Leo and Ken need him. All of the other people who are being taken from their families need him. How long will it be before the company decides that just taking people from hospitals isn’t enough? What will happen when they decide to start taking people off the streets, or from their homes? When does it end?  
  
“You’re tense,” Wonshik observes. “Calm down. We’re fine.”  
  
Hongbin shakes his head, tries to figure out how to explain the sudden rush of righteous anger that he’s feeling. “I’m not worried for myself,” he says. “I’m angry that Leo and Ken didn’t get a choice. I’m angry that none of them have a choice. You can’t just _make_ people into cyborgs against their will. That’s playing god. And even if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t wish that life on anyone.”  
  
Wonshik tenses, his eyes wary. “Why’s that?” he asks. He seems cautious, and he keeps looking around them in a way that Hongbin thinks is supposed to appear casual. Worried that someone is following them, maybe.  
  
“Would you want to be unchanging and undying? Would you want to slowly lose your mind because it doesn’t know what to do with the mish-mash of human and robotic parts inside you?” Hongbin notices Wonshik getting stiffer. Is it because Hongbin is talking about this on the street? There’s no one around that he can see, but he can tell that Wonshik is careful, that he’s worried about getting caught with the information that they have. “It’s not something I would encourage anyone to choose, but it’s even worse that they don’t _get_ a choice.”  
  
“What if there wasn’t a choice? Die a horrible death, too short and too meaningless, or become something…more?” Wonshik says. “What if you looked at the alternative and couldn’t fathom suffering through that. What if becoming a cyborg made you something _better_?”  
  
Hongbin is quiet. He knows the choices some people have had to make. He knows how much of a struggle it is, living the way that they do. He knows how many people die every day, because of the black lung, because of a myriad of other illnesses primarily caused by the pollution that they throw into the air every day. Even still, he can’t imagine encouraging anyone to make that choice. He knows the consequences, and is not convinced that they’re worth it. “What if the thing that you thought would make you better just made everything a thousand times worse? What if you started the work in order to cope, and in the end you realized that it was never going to help you the way you wanted?”  
  
It’s Wonshik’s turn to walk silently, to assess his feelings and compare them to Hongbin’s argument. “I can see what you mean,” he says at last. “But I can still see the merits of it, and it probably depends on the person, but in certain situations I really believe that the rewards could outweigh the cost.”  
  
They’ll have to agree to disagree, Hongbin supposes, especially since they reach the monorail station at that moment and there are too many people around to continue such a dangerous discussion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like an evil laugh is in order here, but I'll refrain. I've only got like 8k words left that are ready for posting because this chapter is so long, but I'm going out of town for the weekend and don't know that I'll get any writing done while I'm gone. But we should have like...three more updates before I run out, at any rate. So we'll see.Thanks so much for reading, guys!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Camp Nano ends on Saturday and I'm behind on my word goal, so excuse me if I seem a bit harried. This chapter sets us up for a big reveal in the next one, and I am super excited. Things are going to start happening a bit more rapidly from here on out, but I'm not going to say that we're nearing the end just yet. There are definitely still things to tell and stuff to do, and I promise the pairing will make itself known fairly soon.
> 
> Also, I want to thank everyone who has commented or left kudos on this fic. I know I haven't really replied to comments, but just know that I appreciate every single bit of feedback (even the kudos) and I come back often just to stare at the stats and wonder how on earth I managed to write something that so many people have read.

Hongbin’s apartment is eerily silent when he lets them in. He and Wonshik haven’t spoken a word to each other since they arrived at the station, and Hongbin wonders whether that’s because they both had a lot to think about or because Wonshik hates him now.  
  
Leo is on the couch, staring down at his hands again. The room is cleaner, the dust swept from the floor and wiped from the bookshelves and the TV. _There wasn’t much furniture here to collect it,_ Hongbin thinks. He shuffles across the floor on quiet stockinged feet and stops a few feet in front of Leo. He can hear Wonshik coming in behind him, slipping off his shoes and padding into the room, but all of Hongbin’s attention is on Leo.  
  
Leo looks up and blinks at him, and Hongbin can see the redness around Leo’s irises, the tear tracks down his face. “Hongbin,” he says. The word croaks in his throat.  
  
Hongbin drops to his knees and reaches for Leo’s hands before he’s really made the decision to do so. He’s not sure that his presence will help, or that whatever is wrong with Leo is even fixable. Hongbin’s just a mechanic, and he might be able to fix Leo if his parts are broken, but there’s nothing Hongbin can do about Leo’s heart or mind. “What’s wrong?” he asks anyway.  
  
 _“I was married,”_ Leo whispers. His voice is both reverent and devastated, and it breaks Hongbin’s heart. “He probably thinks that I am dead.” More tears run down Leo’s face. He seems unaware that he’s even crying. “He thinks that I’m dead and I can’t even remember his _name_.”  
  
Hongbin is shaking. He can feel Leo’s pain like it’s his own and it’s terrifying. Grief is terrifying. It’s terrifying because he knows how easy it would be to fall into the remembrance of his own grief, and he can’t do that right now. Leo needs him, Ken needs him, Wonshik needs him, and all of the others who have been kidnapped or will be kidnapped to be turned into something else need him too. He can’t let them down now.  
  
Leo slumps forward, dropping his forehead to Hongbin’s shoulder. Ragged, gasping sobs shake his frame and Hongbin can do nothing but wrap his arms around Leo’s ribcage and hold him until he calms.  
  
It’s all Hongbin can do to pull himself together in that time as well, but he does his best. He can hear Wonshik shifting behind him, and he knows that there’s more to do before their day is over.  
  
“We’ll find him,” Hongbin promises Leo when his sobs have diminished into sniffles. “We’ll find him and it won’t matter that he thought you were dead, because having you back will be a miracle. Trust me.”  
  
Leo shakes his head but sits up. “I know that it is unlikely we will ever locate him. Unless I remember something more, the likelihood—“  
  
“I don’t give a shit how unlikely it is,” Hongbin interrupts. “You deserve to be together. You’ve both gone through enough.”  
  
Leo seems surprised at the fire in Hongbin’s tone, and only watches him quietly for a while. He’s sitting so still, in the way that only bots (or apparently cyborgs) can.  
  
Wonshik clears his throat, announcing his presence somewhat unnecessarily. Leo jerks in surprise anyway. “We’ll do everything we can to find your husband,” Wonshik says. “That’s why I’m here.”  
  
 _At least someone here has some idea what the fuck they’re doing,_ Hongbin thinks.  
  
\---  
  
Hongbin’s not really sure how he ended up leaving Leo and Wonshik alone in his apartment to go grocery shopping. Wonshik had said that he had a method that might help Leo recover more of his memories and had insisted that he had everything under control. Leo, likewise, had seemed comfortable enough in Wonshik’s presence, and had assured Hongbin that he would be fine.  
  
So now Hongbin is sorting through over-priced produce and trying not to think about what could potentially be going wrong. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Wonshik—he doesn’t know the other man very well, but so far Wonshik has done nothing to make Hongbin wary of him. He does what he says he will, and he’s kind and considerate of other people. Hongbin could associate with much worse people. But people in general are wild cards to him, and Hongbin is never sure what will happen, what choices others will make. There’s never any guarantee that things will go well.  
  
“Look what you’ve _done!_ ” a high voice screeches.  
  
Hongbin jumps, his head whips around, and he sees a middle-aged woman staring haughtily down at a young boy as he picks up all the items that have just fallen out of his basket.  
  
“Why can’t you do anything right?” the woman asks. She has the snobbiest voice Hongbin has ever seen, and she seems to think that she’s so much _better_ than the kid she’s abusing.  
  
Hongbin wonders who the child is: her son? A hired helper of some kind? His question is answered when the boy begins to stand and Hongbin catches the telltale blue glow of his eyes. Ah, a bot then. A pretty young thing, if he were human Hongbin would say the kid was around thirteen or fourteen. He prays that that is not a bot from his company, that she is not abusing a cyborg without even _knowing_.  
  
Hongbin is only halfway through his grocery shopping, but this place is suddenly stifling. How many people are ordering around cyborgs without knowing? How many people are being forced to slowly languish under the hands of masters who treat them as just another piece of machinery? How many more will end up in those situations before Hongbin and Wonshik can stop it?  
  
He rushes through the aisles, taps his toe impatiently at the checkout, and all the while Hongbin can feel creeping panic digging its claws into him. It’s in the rapid beat of his heart, the feathery quickness of his breath, the sweating of his palms as he presses his finger to the scanner to pay.  
  
He almost forgets his mask on the way out the door, and the two-block walk home is the longest he’s ever experienced. His right hand is clenched tight around the bag of groceries, and his left spasms helplessly at his side, minute jerks of his fingers as the nerves short-circuit. The world is too open, there are too many people around him who don’t even _know_ , and he can’t keep this up for much longer.  
  
The filtered air of his apartment building is a small comfort. He takes the stairs—six flights, not so very many—so that he doesn’t have to feel like he’s suffocating in the elevator. He has to set the groceries down to type in his lock code; his left hand is completely useless, still twitching against his leg.  
  
Once inside, he slumps back against the door. It’s cooler inside the apartment, and quiet. But it’s not home, not to him. Hongbin doesn’t have a home. He lost that a long time ago, back when it felt like the world was crashing around him. Because his home was never a place, it was always…never mind. He can’t do this, not right now, not with Wonshik coming around the corner and saying quietly, “Hongbin?” like he’s a frightened animal that needs talking down.  
  
Hongbin shakes his head and feels his knees giving out underneath him. He lets them, slides down the door until he’s sitting on the floor in the entryway of his tiny apartment and wondering how any of this happened. He never wanted this. He never even wanted to live after… _stop it_ , he chides himself. He thought he was getting better, that he was learning to deal with things alone. He hasn’t picked up a bottle in…six months? Seven? He’s better, he’s dealing with it.  
  
“You okay?” Wonshik asks, his voice still soft like he’s worried he’ll startle Hongbin. Leo is hovering behind him, his hands coming up in aborted movements and then dropping again like he’s not sure what to do.  
  
Hongbin’s hand still spasms, and he pulls it into his lap and starts a slow massage, beginning at the elbow and working his way down, carefully digging the pads of his fingers into every muscle and tendon. He doesn’t speak as he does this, doesn’t even look at Wonshik or Leo. He can’t right now, because everything is too much and the past is pulling at him and if he has to think about what he’s lost or what he’s expected to do he won’t be able to keep himself sober for much longer.  
  
Gentle, strong hands slide over his, and then Wonshik is massaging his arm for him, calming the jumping muscles with a surprisingly deft touch. He seems to know just where to touch, where to apply more pressure to have the best affect.  
  
“You’ve done this before,” Hongbin accuses. His voice croaks, and he can’t help but compare it to Leo’s, just a few hours before. They’re more alike than Leo probably realizes.  
  
Wonshik shrugs, but his hands never falter. “Same thing happens to me sometimes,” he admits quietly.  
  
Hongbin thinks he may have heard that wrong. Could Wonshik possibly…? It would explain so many things, not the least of which is his determination to see this solved. His hands are so warm against Hongbin’s skin, his palms calloused but somehow still soft.  
  
It occurs to Hongbin suddenly that Wonshik is very much in his personal space and yet is not apologizing like usual. With his face so close it’s easy for Hongbin to see the light shadows beneath his eyes and the tight frown of his mouth. Hongbin had known that Wonshik was handsome, but it’s another thing entirely to examine his face from this proximity and to realize that Wonshik’s features, though young, have a maturity to them that belie his age. Whether by experience or sheer intelligence, Wonshik could easily be a decade older than he looks.  
  
“Did something happen at the store?” Wonshik asks after a while, when Hongbin hasn’t spoken again. His hands have stopped massaging and now are just wrapped around Hongbin’s, and Hongbin should probably extract himself but he can find no reason to.  
  
Shaking his head, Hongbin says, “There was a woman…it’s not important. I’m alright; I overreacted.” He wonders where she is now, and whether she’s still speaking that way to the boy. She probably is; she probably always will. Bots aren’t people, why should anyone treat them as such? What’s the point of a little common courtesy when you’re speaking to a pile of parts?  
  
Wonshik hums at this, in acknowledgment. “Does this happen often?” he asks. Hongbin’s not sure at first what he’s referring to, the problem with his arm or the panic attack, until Wonshik lifts Hongbin’s hand slightly and nods toward it.  
  
“Not usually,” Hongbin mutters, finally pulling his hand from Wonshik’s and holding it close to his chest. He doesn’t want to get into it, really. “I need to get it looked at.”  
  
Wonshik hums again. “You have someone who does that, I’m guessing?” he says. It’s more of a question than Hongbin thinks it should be. He _is_ capable of taking care of himself, damn it.  
  
Pressing his right hand against the door behind him, Hongbin hauls himself to his feet. He’s too damn old to be sitting on the floor like this. “Yeah, I have someone. I’ll give him a call, get an appointment.”  
  
“Good,” Wonshik says, nodding. Behind him, Leo seems to echo the sentiment. “I need you in good shape. We’ve got work to do.”  
  
Right, of course that’s where Wonshik’s concern comes from. Hongbin is apparently essential to his plan. He understands the gravity of what they need to do, he just doesn’t understand fully where he belongs in all this. What good can he do, in the long run? Why does Wonshik even want _his_ help, of all people? He considers asking, but decides it doesn’t matter. If Wonshik wants Hongbin to feed him information, Hongbin will do his best. He doesn’t have a lot to give, clearly, but he’ll do what he can. It’s what she would want, if she were still here. Hongbin can’t let her down again.  
  
“I’ll be fine,” Hongbin tells Wonshik, picking up the nearly-forgotten groceries and carrying them into the kitchen. He doesn’t especially care if anyone follows him or not, but he finds two men padding behind him into the narrow kitchen, standing there staring at him as he puts produce into the crisper. It all seems so very…normal, in spite of their situation. Maybe it’s the familiar (if long unused) actions of putting away groceries, the way he used to do all the time. Maybe it’s just the quiet, careful way they watch him as he works, stepping back out of his way when he reaches to put cereal and coffee into the cupboard just beside Wonshik’s head.  
  
The kitchen surfaces are clean too, he realizes. Leo has done a lot for him today, and Hongbin hasn’t even acknowledged it. “Thank you,” he says to Leo, looking him in the eyes for the first time since he’s come home. “You didn’t have to clean.”  
  
“I wanted to,” Leo replies at once. His voice sounds better, less choked and broken. Maybe his work with Wonshik uncovered something useful. “But you are welcome, just the same.”  
  
Hongbin nods, accepts that. “How did it go while I was gone? Did you remember anything?” he asks.  
  
Leo shakes his head, and Hongbin can’t help the sinking disappointment that he feels. He was hoping they could get Leo home, that he wouldn’t be stranded here with Hongbin forever. Being with Hongbin has never been terribly safe. “Nothing significant,” Leo says. His arms are crossed loosely over his chest. He’s clenching one hand tightly into the opposite elbow. “A few flashes of things—he had blond hair, I think, and I remember singing to him. But I still do not recall his name, or even his face. Wonshik says that more could return with time.”  
  
“I hope it does,” Hongbin says sincerely. Leo deserves to be happy. After everything he’s been through, he deserves to see his husband again. But a man with blond hair could be anyone, really, and Hongbin knows that they need more to go on before they can really find him. And with so little information about Leo himself, there’s little chance they can even find his identity, before the company took him and made him who he is.  
  
“I’m going to do some searching,” Wonshik says, “and see if I can find anyone in the city’s hospital records who could be Leo. But with so many in the city sick and dying every day….” He trails off, but Hongbin understands. It’s like searching for one tiny computer chip inside a landfill. It could be done, given enough time and determination, but it’s so very unlikely that they shouldn’t hope for it. Wonshik is already doing everything he can.  
  
“What about Ken?” Hongbin asks. He flicks the switch on the coffee pot to get it to reheat what’s left from this morning. He has a feeling he’s going to need it before the night is over.  
  
Wonshik leans back against the counter, scratches the nape of his neck and reports, “My buyer got to him in time and he’s at a safe house now. He’ll be in good hands until they can either find his previous identity or he remembers enough for them to get him home.”  
  
 _That’s good,_ Hongbin thinks. But another thought occurs to him, one that he hadn’t previously addressed. “Will it be safe for him to go home?” he wonders.  
  
“That I don’t know,” Wonshik admits. “As far as we know, the company thinks he’s just a sold bot. But whether they’re keeping tabs on the identities of the people they took, in case someone comes snooping? I don’t know. We’ll probably have to get him new papers, assign his new fingerprint to them. My employer has connections to deal with that, and we’ll make sure he’s safe.”  
  
It’s a relief to hear, to know that Ken will be alright. Hongbin never wanted to make anyone into a cyborg against their will. “He’s just a kid,” he murmurs.  
  
“I know,” Wonshik replies. He lays a hand on Hongbin’s shoulder and gives it a light squeeze. “But we’ll take care of him. We’ll take care of all of them until we can put a stop to this.”  
  
“And when will that be?” Hongbin wonders. But he’s not really looking for an answer, so he’s not surprised when he doesn’t get one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a portion of this chapter that I lost because of a computer crash. It was only a few hundred words but it completely devastated me and I almost stopped working on it altogether. Fortunately, my father is in IT and was able to find the autosave file in the recesses of my harddrive, and thanks to him this fic continues. So, a round of applause for Daddy, and thank you all for reading! I'll see you next week!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry to anyone who saw the new chapter and then it disappeared. I made a horrible, horrible mistake in which I posted the chapter after this one instead of this. I will endeavor to check these things more thoroughly before posting in future. Enjoy!

  
His earpiece buzzes slightly as the phone rings. It’s yet another thing he needs to have examined, and Hongbin would be more worried if it weren’t for the exhaustion that’s pulling at him.  
  
_“Don’t go in to work tomorrow,”_ Wonshik had told him. _“Get that arm looked at, take care of yourself, and come in on Monday. I’ll keep in touch.”_ He left shortly after that, leaving Hongbin alone with Leo, who seemed content to lie on Hongbin’s shitty couch and stare at the ceiling like there was something interesting about it. Maybe there is; hell if Hongbin knows, at this point.  
  
“Why are you calling me so late, you asshole,” says the lilting voice on the other side of the line when Hongbin’s call finally connects. In spite of the language, the other man’s voice is cheerful. He always seems glad to hear from Hongbin.  
  
“Sorry,” Hongbin murmurs anyway. No sense in pissing him off right away. He’s already going to be upset with Hongbin when he finds out how long he’s been ignoring the issue with his arm.  
  
“It’s fine; it’s not like I was sleeping,” the other man replies, like Hongbin knew he would. They’ve known each other for a long time. “And it’s been what, six months since you last came in? You waited until your arm was losing function before calling me, didn’t you?”  
  
Hongbin hesitates, feeling unfamiliar shame creeping in at the other man’s chiding. “I can still use it,” he protests. “It’s just the tremors….”  
  
The other man sighs, and Hongbin can hear the disappointment in that one little breath. “I don’t usually work Saturdays, but I’ll make an exception. Get your ass in here first thing in the morning and I’ll see what I can do.”  
  
“Alright,” Hongbin agrees, knowing that if he doesn’t there’ll be hell to pay. And he does need his arm fixed, so he wouldn’t argue even if it was an option. Because he wants to stay on his good side, Hongbin adds, “Thank you.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah,” is the response. They’ve been friends for too long for him to reply in any other way. “And how’s your head? Have you been taking your pills?”  
  
That’s a question Hongbin had hoped he wouldn’t be asked but knew that he inevitably would. “Not really,” he admits, “but I’ve gotten the last few doses.” _Thanks to Leo,_ he thinks. There’s something more, something that he should mention now because he’s already been asked, and if he withholds it until tomorrow there will be scolding. “She…came back,” he says.  
  
He’s waiting for a reprimand, the reminder that this is the reason he’s _taking_ the pills, but it doesn’t come. “I’ll see what I can do,” the other man says instead. His voice is gentle, and he adds, “I’m sorry, Hongbin. I know that you just wanted to forget, and I’m sorry this hasn’t helped.”  
  
“You couldn’t have known,” Hongbin replies. It was a gamble that he took, and it backfired. He’d had high hopes, but it didn’t work out, and the only person that Hongbin has ever blamed is himself. He’s made a lot of decisions that he’s not proud of.  
  
“Still could have warned you,” the other man protests half-heartedly. There’s no point in arguing it now. It’s over and done with, and Hongbin’s living with the consequences.  
  
“Doesn’t matter,” Hongbin replies, and then changes the subject because there are only so many times they can rehash the same argument. “Look, I’m going to bring someone with me tomorrow. A friend.”  
  
“Oh, Hongbin,” the other man trills, his tone suddenly changing. “Is there romance in the air?”  
  
“No, god,” Hongbin says, rubbing a hand over his face. He doesn’t think he’ll ever feel that way about Leo, especially since he knows he’s already taken. “He’s a friend. He just…well, I’ll explain when I see you, okay?”  
  
“Fair enough,” the other man agrees. “It’ll be good to see you again, Hongbin. I know I’m your doctor foremost, but I am also your friend, you know.”  
  
“I know,” Hongbin replies. “Thanks.”  
  
They disconnect the call shortly after that, and Hongbin can’t help but wonder if it’s a wise decision he’s made, bringing Leo along. He tells himself that there’s nothing to worry about. No one on the street is going to notice that Leo is a cyborg just from looking at him, and if anyone can be trusted, it’s Hongbin’s doctor. He won’t say anything, even if he knows what Leo is.  
  
Everything’s going to be fine.  
  
\---  
  
_The coughs wrack her small frame and Hongbin has to look away. It’s been over a week, and she’s not getting better. He knows what it is. Deep down, he’s known from the beginning. He’s seen it enough times to recognize the signs and he should have taken her to a doctor the moment she started coughing. But he’d trusted her words when she told him that she was fine, and now she’s so ill she can barely get out of bed._  
  
_He presses his apologies into her hands, the side of her face—butterfly kisses meant to sooth the tremors as her fever soars higher. She doesn’t want to go to the hospital, but he refuses to listen any longer. He will not lose her._  
  
_She’s too light, even for her small size, when Hongbin lifts her into his arms. He goes for their shoes, fits masks over both their faces, and takes her out to the car. The doctors will know what to do. They’ll save her, he promises. He’ll be at her side the whole time. She doesn’t have to be afraid._  
  
_He is afraid enough for them both. Nothing can stop the Black Lung once it’s started, not a thousand doctors or hospitals. He knows that it’s too late, but he cannot let her go._  
  
_She’s his everything, and he drives a little faster, praying to every god he can think of that she will be spared. He would give up everything, his very humanity, if it meant that she could live._  
  
\---  
  
The light of day is jarring. Waking up is harder now than it used to be. But Hongbin has things he must do, and that means leaving his dreams and his past behind so that he can keep moving forward. There was once a time that he thought that by clinging to the past he could return to it, but it’s not that simple, or easy. You can’t turn back the clock any more than you can reverse death, and Hongbin knows how final that is.  
  
Leo is singing again. He always seems to be singing, and maybe it’s a comfort to him. If it is, Hongbin hopes that he never loses it. Comforts are few and far between in this world, and are worth holding on to no matter how small. Hongbin doesn’t have many of his own, but he finds that Leo’s singing is becoming one for him. The other man’s gentle voice is soothing, and Hongbin has slept better in the last few days than he has in years.  
  
He needs to get out of bed, to shower and make breakfast and get them both moving. He has an appointment to keep. But he lets himself remain in bed for a few moments longer, listening to Leo’s soft song and wondering at how different his life has become in so short a time. Having responsibilities to someone other than himself is something he hasn’t had to deal with in a very long time. And knowing that he’s beginning to care for these people, that he’s worried about their well-being and it matters to him not only whether they live or die but whether they’re happy, well, that’s terrifying. He remembers what happened the last time he cared about someone. He doesn’t want to live through that again.  
  
He makes himself get out of bed. Leo doesn’t even notice him slipping across the hall to the bathroom, and he lets himself relax under the warm spray of water for just a minute. He’ll figure it out. He’s not good at dealing with people or problems or…anything, anymore. But he’s not doing this alone. It’ll be okay.  
  
He tells himself that as he dries off and dresses, as he goes out to the living room to face Leo for the first time today.

Leo’s in front of the TV, staring at the blank screen like he’s fascinated by his own reflection. Hongbin waits for Leo to notice him, to look up and acknowledge his presence, but nothing is forthcoming. He’s just about to open his own mouth when Leo speaks. “Will he even recognize me?” he asks.  
  
Hongbin winces, shrinks away from Leo and the thing that he’s made him. He has to keep going. He can’t let this ruin him. “I don’t know,” he admits quietly. “Wonshik said that he made alterations to my software, to keep you as close to yourself as possible, but…you look very much like the bot that I designed. I’m honestly not sure how much of you is left.” It’s a painful thing to say. He doesn’t want to tell Leo that his own husband might not even recognize him. Hongbin can’t imagine how painful that would be.  
  
“You are not at fault,” Leo murmurs. He’s standing in front of Hongbin now, and Hongbin’s honestly not sure when that happened. His mouth is dry and he doesn’t even want to look at Leo. He can’t stand to see the forgiveness there because no matter what Leo says, he doesn’t think he deserves it. “I am only grateful that it was you, and not someone else.”  
  
Fuck, Hongbin can’t do this. Screw his appointment; screw absolutely everything else. He’s going to go hide in his room until all of this goes away.  
  
Leo catches his arm, gentle fingers in the curve of his elbow. “You cannot keep running away, Hongbin,” he says. He’s not really restraining Hongbin—he could walk away right now if he wanted. “I do not know what horrors from your past linger with you still, but the only way to be free of them is to confront them.”  
  
Hongbin hates that Leo thinks he knows what Hongbin is going through. He hates that he’s probably right. He hates that he’s been ignoring all of his problems for the last third of his life, like doing that will make them go away. He hates the person he’s become. Air is hard to come by and his head hurts and Hongbin feels Leo’s fingers against his arm like hot brands burning into his flesh. Everything has been so much harder since he lost her. “I can’t,” he whispers.  
  
Leo nods. “Perhaps it is too much to ask of you just now,” he agrees, “but I need you here, as do many others. I cannot sit by and watch you fall apart when so much relies on you. And I cannot see you in pain and do nothing.”  
  
Hongbin takes a deep breath and acknowledges the tears that are building behind his eyes. He doesn’t remember the last time someone admitted to actually _caring_ about him. It’s surprisingly bittersweet. “Thank you,” he replies when he feels that he can speak without croaking. “I’ll be alright. I can keep doing my job. I just…need to stop feeling, sometimes.” It seems like so very little, but it’s more than he’s admitted to anyone, other than…never mind. The important thing is that this is an offering, small though it is, to Leo. It’s Hongbin admitting that he has a problem but also that he has no idea how to fix it.  
  
Leo takes it as it is, and gives Hongbin a tiny smile. “I understand. I will do anything I can to help you, Hongbin.”  
  
The offer is too much, and Hongbin feels his airways tightening again, but he fights his way through it and doesn’t pull away from Leo again. “So,” he says instead, “I’m going to have breakfast and then I have an appointment. You can come, if you want.”  
  
“Is that wise?” Leo asks. His brows twitch down in concern.  
  
Hongbin nods, breathing a little easier now that the subject is on something else. “It should be fine. He’s my doctor, and he’s trustworthy. He won’t tell a soul.”  
  
Leo studies him for a time, follows Hongbin into the kitchen and watches while he starts a pot of coffee and fishes for bread to make toast. “You want him to examine me.” It’s not an accusation, just an observation, and so Hongbin attempts to respond in kind.  
  
“He’s worked with cyborgs before,” he admits. If there’s a circle of hell for those who lie by omission, he’s pretty sure he belongs there. “And like I said, he’s trustworthy. We won’t have to worry about someone finding out what you are.”  
  
“Very well,” Leo agrees. “I will accompany you.”  
  
\---  
  
Three stops on the monorail, during which Hongbin tries his very best not to either have a panic attack or seem suspicious in any way. It’s harder than it sounds, especially when he is very aware of Leo’s presence beside him and the fact that he is harboring an illegal cyborg.  
  
As aware as he is of Leo, and as paranoid as he feels right now, he doesn’t even notice the other man moving to lay a hand on his arm until it’s there. Leo’s fingers wrap firmly around Hongbin’s jittery wrist and he realizes that his hand is shaking again. He stretches it idly, clenching the hand into a fist and then releasing, spreading the fingers as wide as they’ll go. Through this exercise, Leo’s hand stays where it is, no doubt feeling the play of Hongbin’s muscles and tendons beneath his skin.  
  
When the tremors have slowed, Leo’s hand slides slowly into Hongbin’s, their fingers threading together like they belong there. In spite of the intimacy of the action, it’s not meant to be romantic. Leo saw someone in need of comfort and he gave it without a word. Hongbin wonders whether that was something Leo would have done before, or if it’s a symptom of his programming.  
  
There’s a young woman staring at them, across the aisle to their left. At first Hongbin thinks there’s suspicion in her eyes, that unhesitating stare. After a moment he realizes that it’s envy, that she thinks that they’re a couple. Considering their current position he’s not surprised, but it’s been so long since he’s been in a position to be envied that it’s no wonder he didn’t immediately recognize it.  
  
“Breathe,” Leo whispers. His lips are very near Hongbin’s ear, and the girl’s stare narrows. She thinks one or the other of them is unworthy of this attention, Hongbin thinks. And considering the way Leo leans into him, the hot breath against Hongbin’s neck, he’s also willing to bet who it is that she’s envious of.  
  
“I’m alright,” Hongbin replies just as quietly. He is alright. He takes a slow, deep breath to emphasize his point and looks away from the girl, in spite of her continued staring. She’s not a threat to them. She doesn’t realize what Leo is; she just wants him for herself. Perhaps someone she loves has recently died, and she’s angry at anyone who has what she’s been denied. Hongbin certainly knows how that feels.  
  
The train slows as it reaches their station, and Hongbin’s earpiece zaps him just a bit as a smooth robotic voice announces their location into it. Damn he hopes there’s an easy fix for that. He really doesn’t want to get a new one, but he might have to if the fucking thing keeps acting up.  
  
Hongbin stands before the train has come to a complete stop, his footing steady as he makes his way to the doors. Leo is right beside him, their fingers still entwined, and Hongbin doesn’t analyze that, doesn’t take it as anything but what it is. Even if Leo weren’t already taken, Hongbin doesn’t think he could feel anything like romance for anyone, at this point. He can’t even imagine going through the pain of losing another person who’s important to him.  
  
There’s a short walk ahead of them, out of the station and down the street to a plain-looking office building with very little signage. If Hongbin didn’t know it was there he probably wouldn’t even notice it. But as it is he goes up to the door and pulls it open (it’s so old it doesn’t even have an automatic opener) and goes inside. Leo follows him, his footsteps light.  
  
Up a flight of stairs and down a long brick-walled corridor, there’s a door with just a number on it. It’s this one that Hongbin wants, office 242, with its peeling green paint and tarnished metal number plaque. He hasn’t been here in a while but it looks just the same as before, and the familiarity helps the last of the tension slip away. He’s not outside in public anymore; it’s safe here.  
  
He opens the door without bothering to knock. There’s a desk at the front, facing the door like there should be a receptionist, but Hongbin knows for a fact that there never is. He skirts around it, past the two hard plastic chairs that run perpendicular to it against the wall, and raps his knuckles against a second door behind it. Leo has dropped his hand. Hongbin doesn’t mind.  
  
He doesn’t wait for an answer before he pushes this door open as well. The room beyond is better kept, the paint on the walls fresher and everything looking clean and sterile. There’s an examination chair in the middle of the room, like the kind you sit in at the dentist, and there’s another exam table along the wall to the left. In the back is a counter that spans that entire side of the room, and in front of it there’s a man sitting on a rolling stool.  
  
“I’m here,” Hongbin announces, as if this is necessary information. He notes that the other man has changed his hair color—deep red now, rather than the blond he sported the last time Hongbin saw him—and he’s wearing all black, slim-cut slacks and a button-front shirt and combat boots in 21 st century style.  
  
“Hey, Hongbin,” he replies, not looking up from the papers in front of him. This is not unusual. He’s always checking Hongbin’s chart before they begin to make sure that he remembers exactly what they’ve done in the past. “Just give me two seconds, and then we can get started.”  
  
Hongbin hums in agreement and moves to flop down in the exam chair. He’s almost forgotten about Leo, but looks up to see him hovering in the doorway and waves him inside. There’s a chair in the corner, and Leo takes it uncertainly, perching on the very edge like he might need to stand up at any moment.  
  
The other man makes a satisfied little noise and shuffles some papers around, pushing his stool back so he can stand. Putting the papers into a folder and closing it with finality, he turns and says, “So I think I know where I’d like to start, but by all means let me know if you….” He trails off, and his normally dark skin goes very, very white.  
  
Hongbin freezes, unsure what he’s seeing, when he realizes that the other man isn’t looking at him. He’s staring at Leo, who has risen suddenly from his chair and is frozen, staring back.  
  
With a rattling inhale, he whispers, “ _Taekwoon_?”  
  
And Leo, his eyes filling with impossible tears, his hands shaking like he’s Hongbin, replies in a choked voice, “ _Hakyeon_?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, that's the proper chapter. Sorry again to anyone who saw the wrong one and got confused. I'm so mad at myself for that, ugh.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again to anyone who saw the wrong chapter during the brief time it was up last week. If you've seen this before, please go back and read the last chapter, and then this one should make more sense. I'm so excited for this chapter. I absolutely loved the reaction to the big reveal at the end of the last one and there's just more from here on out.

Hongbin can only sit there while Leo (Taekwoon?) crosses the room in three swift strides and pulls Hakyeon into his arms. Hakyeon presses his face into Leo’s (Taekwoon’s?) shoulder and heaves a great gasping sob. Hongbin has no idea what’s going on, but he can guess: this is Leo’s husband, the man he couldn’t remember, and Hongbin had no idea. He can see the ring glittering on Hakyeon’s left hand. He knew Hakyeon was married, but he never met his husband. Is this even possible? How can it have been so easy, finding the man they were looking for with nothing to go on?  
  
“They told me you were dead,” Hakyeon breathes. His hands are clutching tightly to Leo’s back, until his knuckles are white. “They told me you were dead and they gave me your ring but they never let me see your body, and I knew they were lying but I couldn’t prove it.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Leo—Taekwoon—murmurs, his lips pressed to Hakyeon’s hair. Hongbin doesn’t feel like he should be watching this but he also can’t seem to look away. Taekwoon’s hands are rubbing over Hakyeon’s shoulders and down his back, like he’s reassuring himself that he’s really there. “I’m sorry; I never meant to leave you.”  
  
“God, I just…what happened? Where did you go? Why are you…?” Hakyeon doesn’t seem to have words, but Hongbin knows that he can’t have missed it, that Taekwoon is different now. He’s built slightly different, maybe, or his features aren’t quite the same, or his voice is off. His flesh is giving but underneath is solid metal, and it’s Hongbin’s fault, he made Leo this. And now Hakyeon will never forgive him.  
  
“It’s a long story,” Taekwoon says. He presses a kiss—gentle, intimate—to Hakyeon’s temple and pulls back just a bit, so he can look at him. His hands cradle Hakyeon’s face and his thumbs wipe Hakyeon’s tears away. He doesn’t even acknowledge the tears on his own cheeks.  
  
Hakyeon shakes his head, takes hold of Taekwoon’s wrist and turns to press a kiss to his palm. “You’re different,” he says. It’s just an observation, with no accusation or malice in it at all, but Hongbin can’t help the flood of guilt. Hakyeon and Taekwoon stare at each other for a long moment, drinking each other in, and then Hakyeon says, “I need to know.”  
  
Taekwoon admits, “I remember very little, until I awoke in Hongbin’s lab.”  
  
Hakyeon seems to remember just then that there’s someone else in the room, and he turns to Hongbin. “Hongbin’s lab?” he asks, and the question is still aimed at Taekwoon even though he’s not looking at him.  
  
Taekwoon nods, and gently turns Hakyeon’s head back toward him. “He saved me. If it were not for him…I would have been sold by now.”  
  
“ _Sold?_ ” Hakyeon hisses. His breath is coming too short; Hongbin can see that from where he sits. He’ll hyperventilate before long.  
  
“They’re kidnapping people,” Hongbin says, because he can’t stand the tension in the air. He doesn’t know much, but he’ll give Hakyeon whatever he has. He deserves that much. “They’re…synthesizing metal into body parts and making people into cyborgs. I didn’t…I didn’t know. Until Leo—Taekwoon—woke up, I had no idea. My software was outdated, I…I had no idea.”  
  
Hakyeon closes his eyes and takes one deep, even breath, and then another. He’s calmer when he looks up. “You’re going to get the bastards doing this,” he says. It’s not a question.  
  
Hongbin nods anyway, frantically, and tells him, “I’m working with someone who’s trying to take the company down from the inside. We’re doing everything we can.” Hongbin could be doing more. Hongbin could have gotten out before he made Hakyeon’s husband a cyborg. “I’m sorry, Hakyeon. I’m so sorry. I never meant to do this to him.”  
  
Taekwoon makes a frustrated little noise, looks at Hongbin for the first time since this conversation began, and says, “I told you that you were not at fault.”  
  
Hongbin tries to protest, but he’s spoken over by Hakyeon, who insists, “Taekwoon is right. If it wasn’t you it would have been one of the other engineers, and then I never would have known. He…he wouldn’t be himself, if it weren’t for you.”  
  
“I didn’t even know I was doing it!” Hongbin yells. He doesn’t mean to, it just comes out. There’s a flash of white at the corner of his vision. No, not right now, he can’t do this now.  
  
Hakyeon huffs a little, and pulls out of Taekwoon’s arms. Damn it, Hongbin didn’t want to separate them. They finally found each other again, and now he’s already separated them and all of this is his fault. “Hongbin,” Hakyeon says softly, “it’s alright.”  
  
But it’s not alright. There’s another flash of white, closer this time, and Hongbin raises his hands to rub at his face and realizes that the left one is shaking beyond his control and he can’t, he _can’t_ do this.  
  
 _“Hongbin.”_  
  
She’s standing beside him wearing a flowing white dress. She’d loved that dress, had worn it all the time.  It’s what she was wearing when they took her. Hongbin regrets its loss almost as much as he regrets hers.  
  
“No, no, no, no, no,” Hongbin whines, pressing his good hand to his eyes. If he can’t see her, maybe she’ll go away. He can’t do this.  
  
 _“You have to stop, Hongbin. You can’t keep doing this.”_ Her voice is steady, but not the way it was in those last days. It’s warmer, like it was at the very beginning, when everything was so new.  
  
“I’m not,” Hongbin whines. There are hands on his arm, pulling it from his face. He opens his eyes and she’s still there, gazing down at him with sparkling eyes. She’s younger than he’s ever seen her.  
  
 _“You blame yourself, and that blame is eating you alive. Look at what you’ve become. Look at what you’re doing to your friends.”_  
  
What friends? Hongbin has only ever pushed people away. No one stays—no one wants to deal with a train-wreck like him. He doesn’t have friends, not since her. But there are still hands on his skin, and then a sharp prick of pain in his arm, and he’s not sure what’s happening but he sees her waver like a heat mirage.  
  
 _“I love you. But you have to let me go, Hongbin. You can still live.”_  
  
He can’t, not without her. He tries to tell her that, but she’s wavering again and then she’s gone. Everything is heavy and he hasn’t had a hangover this bad in _months_ and Hongbin can’t even move. Dimly, he’s aware that his hand is still shaking, and that someone is holding it, massaging over it the way Hakyeon taught him.  
  
Oh, Hakyeon. It comes back slowly, the office, the familiar chair, Hakyeon working on Hongbin’s arm while Taekwoon hovers behind him. He groans, the pain in his head worsening as the florescent lights overhead burn into his retinas.  
  
“You’re back,” Hakyeon observes, his hands never ceasing their work. “You understated things a bit when I spoke to you on the phone.”  
  
“This happens often?” Taekwoon asks, his hands hovering like he wants to touch Hakyeon but isn’t sure that he should while he’s working.  
  
Hakyeon nods, setting Hongbin’s arm down. The tremors have stopped. “Hallucinations,” he explains shortly. His eyes are very intense on Hongbin’s face, and he can’t help but look away. “We had them under control for a while, but it seems they’ve gotten worse. Did you take your pills this morning?” The last is actually directed at Hongbin, who nods.  
  
“That’s what those are for?” Taekwoon asks. “I’ve been making sure he takes them. He didn’t…seem well, but I wasn’t sure….” He trails off, studying Hongbin thoughtfully.  
  
Hakyeon turns on his stool, picks up Taekwoon’s hovering hand and presses a kiss to his knuckles. “Thank you for looking after him,” he says. “He’s a very dear friend of mine.” A dear friend who never met his husband, who didn’t even know that his husband was sick.  
  
 _Some friend,_ Hongbin thinks bitterly.  
  
“Clearly we have some work to do,” Hakyeon says, looking back at Hongbin. “Your wrist might need an overhaul, and I’ll have to take a look at your head. Anything else I should be worried about?”  
  
Hongbin almost shrugs, almost tells Hakyeon that he’s fine, but he knows better than that. There’ll be hell to pay if he omits something important. “My earpiece,” he says at last. “It’s been acting up lately.”  
  
“I’ll have a look at that too, then,” Hakyeon agrees. “And when I’m finished with you, if it’s alright I’d like to examine my husband.”  
  
Hongbin almost offers to let Taekwoon go first. But he can see in Hakyeon’s eyes that he’s in no mood for arguing, and Hongbin also knows that of the two of them, he’s clearly the one who needs the most help. Taekwoon is fine, is standing and talking and remembering things without having hallucinations or panic attacks or losing control of his limbs. Taekwoon is fine. But Hongbin? Hongbin hasn’t been fine for a very long time. “Alright,” he agrees, leaning back in the chair and watching as Hakyeon goes to wash his hands and get out his tools.  
  
It’s a good thing that Hongbin isn’t afraid of needles anymore, as there are a lot of them involved in most of his appointments with Hakyeon. An injection to numb his arm, to start, and then when it’s taken effect Hakyeon pulls out the scalpel. The incisions aren’t large, but blood oozes from them and he dabs it away, making room for the tiny tools that he uses to prod around inside Hongbin’s arm.  
  
Hakyeon’s diagnostic equipment is state-of-the-art, built into the chair Hongbin is reclining in and feeding Hakyeon a constant stream of information on a little screen next to Hongbin’s head. It’s how Hakyeon knew where to cut, how he sees where his instruments are going. He makes soft humming noises and stares very seriously at the screen, and Hongbin watches his hands manipulate the tools and thinks again that he picked the very best doctor he could have.  
  
Taekwoon is watching them with no small amount of fascination. It’s the most expressive Hongbin has ever seen his face, and he wonders if that’s because of Hakyeon. Hongbin knows if it were him, finding his spouse again after being uncertain if he’d ever be able to would certainly have an effect on him. He thinks that he would probably be crying, still.  
  
Hongbin knows the moment Hakyeon finds the problem, as he makes a small ‘ah-ha!’ noise and then there’s an odd pulling beneath Hongbin’s skin. He doesn’t especially like to see this part, so he looks at Taekwoon’s face instead, and therefore sees the moment that he realizes what is going on. His eyes go wide and he drops rather unexpectedly into the chair in the corner, like he just couldn’t remember how to stand up anymore. Hongbin meets his gaze steadily and tries not to show how panicked he is at Taekwoon’s reaction.  
  
“Bit of faulty wiring,” Hakyeon is saying. “I’ll replace it and the tremors should stop. But you really have to take better care of yourself, or you’re going to short out your entire arm.” He looks up, sees them staring at each other, and asks quietly, “Is something wrong?”  
  
Hongbin breaks the eye contact and turns back to Hakyeon, sees the bloody piece of wiring in his gloved hands and knows that there is no explanation for this other than the truth. “He didn’t know,” Hongbin admits. Is it warm in here, or is that just him? It’s probably just him. He’s broken and messed up and he should have told Taekwoon about this instead of making him watch his husband pull Hongbin apart like a bot.  
  
No, not like a bot. Like a cyborg, with bones and flesh and metal parts all combined, computer chips and nerve impulses all mixed up and confused until he’s not sure what’s real anymore, and every moment is a struggle and he doesn’t want to live any longer.  
  
Hakyeon’s eyes are wide now too, and his hands are frozen, fingers squeezing around that little bit of wire. “He didn’t know? Hongbin, if I’d known, then I wouldn’t have….”  
  
“It’s fine,” Hongbin interrupts. A glance at Taekwoon says that he’s still staring, and every line of his body is rigid and utterly still. “I should have told him already.”  
  
“Hongbin,” Taekwoon finally chokes out, sounding like he hasn’t breathed. Hongbin thinks he might not have. He’s not sure Taekwoon has enough real flesh to _need_ oxygen. “What is going on?”  
  
Hongbin braces himself for the outrage, the rejection. He’s never said this to anyone, never told anyone what he did to himself after… _after_. Hakyeon has always been the only one who ever knew, but now he’s not the only person in Hongbin’s life, and he owes it to Taekwoon to tell him the truth. Maybe Taekwoon has already realized, maybe he’s figured it out, but he deserves the words, said to his face. Hongbin has to tell him.  
  
He takes a deep, steadying breath, and gives himself a bare moment to formulate the sentence in his head. There’s no way to dance around it, nothing he can say to soften the blow. In the end, it’s not like it matters that much. No matter how he phrases it, the truth won’t change. This is it.  
  
“I’m a cyborg.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Evil cackling]


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit shorter than previous ones. But after all the big reveals in the last couple of chapters I thought we could use a bit of a break. So there are some furtherings of plot, but overall this section is pretty chill to set us up for more drama in the coming weeks. Yay! Please enjoy.

Taekwoon’s been sitting in the corner staring at him. He went completely silent when Hongbin told him the truth and he hasn’t spoken a word since. It’s been nearly an hour, and Hongbin can’t even move out of Taekwoon’s line of sight because he’s still sitting in the exam chair, trying to hold still while Hakyeon fixes the wiring in his arm and moves on to his built-in earpiece.  
  
“It’s outdated,” Hakyeon says, breaking the rigid silence of the room. “You’ve had this one for what, like three years? I don’t think I can fix it. You’re going to need a new one.”  
  
Hongbin had been afraid of that, but he’s not especially surprised. He uses the distraction to look away from Taekwoon, to answer Hakyeon, “Then do it. It’s not like I don’t have the money.”  
  
Hakyeon snorts unattractively and goes back to poking at the bits of metal and wiring connected to Hongbin’s head. On the outside, his earpiece looks just like anyone else’s—a thin, curved piece of stainless steel that hooks over the top of his ear and dips down into the edge of his ear canal—but what can’t be seen is the wiring that slides beneath his skin and connects to the control board inside his head, which allows his brain to give impulses and instruction to the robotic parts of him. “Yeah, because the money is what I care about and not the fact that at this rate your earpiece is going to short out and take the rest of your hardware with it,” Hakyeon quips.  
  
“Well, you’d be rid of one more annoyance,” Hongbin answers. The familiar teasing is almost enough to make him forget that Taekwoon is still staring, that he’s Hakyeon’s cyborg husband and now he knows that Hongbin is a cyborg too and he doesn’t know what to do with that information.  
  
Hakyeon glares sharply at him, and Hongbin thinks that if he weren’t wearing sterile gloves he would probably have hit him too. “Don’t say that. You know that you’re more than just a paycheck to me.”  
  
Hongbin looks away, unable to handle the sincerity on Hakyeon’s face, the caring. “I know,” he mumbles. Hakyeon has been beside him throughout all of this, from the very beginning. He’s done every bit of work; every piece of hardware inside Hongbin’s body was put there by Hakyeon. And there’s been a lot of time for them to get to know each other during that work. Hours upon hours with Hongbin in a chair, having his insides torn apart and reconstructed, and he had to be awake for every procedure. They’re about as close as two people can be, at this point.  
  
“I never knew,” Taekwoon says quietly. Everything he says is quiet, but this seems especially so. Maybe he’s ashamed of his response; maybe he’s still just taking it all in. Whatever it is, Hongbin is strangely glad that he’s choosing to speak at all. “Maybe I don’t remember everything. My life before is still…strange and distorted, in my memory. But I don’t remember Hongbin. I don’t remember knowing him.”  
  
“I didn’t know you either,” Hongbin points out. He’s known Hakyeon for years; they’ve been friends for years. How did he never meet Hakyeon’s husband?  
  
Taekwoon shakes his head, and his artful fringe flops into his eyes. “There are things missing. How could I know nothing about one of my husband’s dearest friends? How could I remember nothing of someone like you?” He says _someone like you_ like it’s the highest praise, and Hongbin isn’t sure how he manages it. He’s never been someone worthy of blessings. He’s a curse, who hurts everyone and everything he touches.  
  
“I did it on purpose,” Hakyeon finally says. His tone suggests that he knows they’ll be angry at this confession, but he can’t stand to lie to them any longer. Hongbin knows the feeling. Hakyeon turns away from his work to look Taekwoon in the eye and says, “I knew Hongbin before I met you.”  
  
Taekwoon is quiet. He doesn’t move or speak but he watches Hakyeon, and Hakyeon shrinks a little away from the intense stare. Hongbin can’t say that he didn’t know, on some level, because at the very least Hakyeon had not been married when they first met.  
  
Sighing, Hakyeon explains, “Look, I…I have to be careful who I trust with information about my job. You both know that. I’d been working with Hongbin for maybe…four years when I met you? And then…,” he glances at Hongbin and then stares down at his own hands instead. His gloves are still mostly pristine, a new pair that he put on after finishing with Hongbin’s arm. “We were happy together and getting married and I just couldn’t do that to Hongbin. I didn’t want him to hurt every time he looked at me. Maybe that was selfish, and you probably think it’s a stupid reason to hide my oldest friend from my husband, but I just couldn’t….”  
  
Hongbin shakes his head and wraps his fingers gently around Hakyeon’s arm above the glove. “I get it,” he says, swallowing through a suddenly dry throat. “Thank you.”  
  
Taekwoon has gotten up and steps up next to Hakyeon’s stool. Stooping a bit, he presses a kiss to Hakyeon’s hair and settles a hand on his back. “You were trying to protect all three of us from unnecessary hurt,” he murmurs, “and I suppose I cannot fault you for that.”  
  
Hakyeon lets out a breath of relief and pulls himself up a little taller. “Thank you,” he replies, looking between them so it’s obvious that it’s meant for both of them. “I know I shouldn’t have. Two of the most important people in my life, and I kept you separate because I wasn’t sure if I could handle the emotions involved. Guess it’s a good thing I’m not a shrink, huh?”  
  
The joke was weak, at best, but it gets a chuckle out of Hongbin and a slight smile from Taekwoon, and that seems to make Hakyeon relax a bit.  
  
\---  
  
When Hongbin leaves Hakyeon’s office, it’s with a new earpiece—sleeker, thinner than the last one. Hakyeon insists that it’s the newest model, the one that all the young kids want these days, though Hongbin doesn’t particularly care about that as long as it works. There are bandages covering the incisions in his arm, and Hakyeon gave him a new prescription. This new medication is supposed to be stronger, will hopefully keep her at bay. Hongbin prays that it works. He’s not sure how many times more he can see her without going truly crazy.  
  
Taekwoon stays behind. There’s no reason for him to go home with Hongbin, now that he’s found his husband. They’ll have to be careful, just in case someone is watching Hakyeon, but Hongbin doesn’t think it’s likely. Hakyeon has always been careful; he would have noticed by now.  
  
Hongbin doesn’t know for sure how many of Taekwoon’s memories have come back. He seems to remember Hakyeon now, and the more time they spent in the office the more human he seemed. Hongbin wonders if he’s even seen a glimpse of Taekwoon’s true nature, or if the alterations have really changed that much of him.  
  
And that’s another thing, something that Hongbin will have to tell Wonshik about later: Taekwoon’s name was never Leo. Hongbin isn’t sure where the name came from (though he thinks about the fact that Taekwoon would have been model L, had he been a bot) but if Taekwoon’s name was wrong, then it’s very likely that Ken’s is, as well. They could be looking for the wrong person entirely.  
  
Hongbin still isn’t sure that he can do this. The train home feels like a steel trap designed to suffocate him, and everywhere he goes it seems that there’s someone staring at him. But with his hardware functioning correctly it’s a little easier to keep himself steady. He breathes slow and deep and watches the gray landscape of the city fly by and he tells himself that it’s going to be okay. He did a good thing today: he got Taekwoon home. How many others can he save?  
  
He wasn’t sure he’d manage to save even one, but seeing the way Hakyeon and Taekwoon were together, he can’t regret starting this. There’s still a deep sense of guilt at having turned Taekwoon into a cyborg, a stain that he’ll never be able to erase. But there’s also the joy of watching their reunion, the knowledge that Taekwoon truly would be dead if it weren’t for the alterations that saved his life.  
  
It would have been better if Hakyeon had been allowed to make those alterations, or to find someone they both trusted to do them. But Hongbin can’t completely regret how things turned out. Taekwoon is alive and at his husband’s side, and Hongbin would give anything…to have the same. It’s too late for Hongbin, but it’s not too late for Taekwoon and Hakyeon, and he prays that they be allowed every possible happiness.  
  
It might be too late for Hongbin, but it is not too late for others, and he can help save them.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting a little early because I have a show tonight. I only have one more full chapter written right now but I'm going to work on that over the next few days and hopefully I won't have to take a hiatus. I love you guys! All of the responses I've gotten so far truly give me life. Please enjoy!

Walking into the company building on Monday morning is easier than before. Maybe it’s because he’s eaten and slept, or maybe because his hardware is all functional now. Maybe it’s just that the weekend spent shut alone inside his little apartment, reading the old-fashioned paper books that he used to love and hasn’t touched in years, was enough to recharge him and prepare him for dealing with people again. Whatever it is, Hongbin is glad for the calm that stays settled in him as he walks through the lobby and gets on the elevator.  
  
He ignores the disgruntled groans when he presses B18 this time, and focuses on the bad elevator music instead of the conversations around him. The people who work on the higher floors, in sales and IT and HR, they’re all so much more talkative than the engineers who make up the bottom ten basement levels. They chat over their cups of overpriced coffee about clients and bosses and the things they have to get done today, and Hongbin envies them their ignorance. They have no idea what’s going on here; they’re just doing their jobs.  
  
He lets the solitude close around him as he steps out of the elevator and hears the doors slide shut behind him. His lab is at the very end of the hallway, but he doesn’t mind. He got his pick, when he started here, and back then he’d wanted to be as far away from everyone and everything as he could. He still does, but now it’s out of fear, rather than simple paranoia. He’d been convinced that if he made one wrong step he’d be found out. But that was years ago, and he knows now that no one can tell what he is.  
  
The door of his lab creaks open on poorly oiled hinges. He needs to get that fixed, probably. It can’t be good for it.  
  
There’s someone sitting at his computer terminal. Hongbin feels his breathing quicken for a moment, feels his heart begin to pound, and then his brain registers _who_ is sitting at his computer. “How did you get in here?” he asks Wonshik, walking into the lab so that the door can shut behind him.  
  
Wonshik swivels in the desk chair, his head staying oriented to the screens for as long as possible until his neck can’t turn that far anymore, and then his gaze snaps to Hongbin instead. “IT work code,” he says, “since I was the last person to touch your computer.”  
  
Hongbin is familiar with the method—IT can come into the labs when the engineers aren’t there, but only if they were the last person to work on their terminal and usually with prior permission. He’s so rarely absent from his lab that he’s not sure he’s ever given one of the IT staff leave to use a work code. Normally he just answers the door.  
  
He walks closer, tries to get a look at whatever Wonshik is working on, and stops dead. “What do you think you’re doing,” he deadpans, trying very hard not to fall into a proper panic attack. Wonshik can’t possibly know the implications of what he’s doing right now. If he did, he would _never_ ….  
  
Wonshik turns back to the screens, and his fingers go back to typing like they never stopped. “I isolated your terminal so I could take a look at that broken data card from the other day,” he says. It’s so nonchalant he can’t possibly realize what he’s doing. He never would have even _touched_ it if he’d known.  
  
“Stop,” Hongbin says, his voice too tight. “Stop right now. Don’t touch her.”  
  
Wonshik freezes and then turns very slowly to face Hongbin. “Did you say ‘her’?” he asks quietly.  
  
No. No no no no no. Hongbin didn’t mean to say that. He can’t…he can’t talk about this to anyone, hasn’t even told the full story to Hakyeon. He won’t discuss this. He won’t explain himself. “Get out,” he hisses. He can’t breathe and everything is going fuzzy and this is the last thing he wants.  
  
Wonshik stands and his hands wrap around Hongbin’s biceps and he squeezes gently. His face is gentle and open and worried and he says, “Hey, I’m sorry. I won’t ask, okay? I just…I wanted to understand why you’d have something like that plugged into your computer and…you know what? I should have just asked. I shouldn’t have gone poking around in things that weren’t my business, but that’s kind of what I do, and sometimes I just forget that that’s not always the best way to go about getting to know people.”  
  
Hongbin shakes his head. “I don’t like it when people poke around in my business.”  
  
“No,” Wonshik agrees, “I can see that. I’m sorry, Hongbin, really.” His hands run upwards and cup around the swell of Hongbin’s shoulders instead, and he steps a little closer. For one insane, harrowing moment Hongbin thinks that Wonshik is going to kiss him. But then he’s pulling away, stepping out of Hongbin’s personal space and clearing the path between Hongbin and the terminal.  
  
Hongbin goes to the desk chair, plops down in it and turns to stare at the screens. This is everything that’s left. A broken data card and a thousand memories that he can’t scrub clean, that he can’t throw away. That’s all Hongbin has left of her.  
  
And suddenly he doesn’t want to be alone in this anymore. He’s been alone for far too long, and he can’t fathom holding this so close to his chest anymore. He can hear Wonshik begin to walk away the longer he’s silent and he starts to panic and before he knows it he’s blurting out, “I was married.”  
  
The footsteps stop, and Hongbin hears them shuffle just slightly, presumably as Wonshik turns. He doesn’t look.  
  
“I know,” Wonshik replies quietly. Hongbin should have known that would be his answer. After all, apparently Wonshik looked him up before attempting to recruit him. He probably knows all of Hongbin’s terrible secrets.  
  
“She was everything to me,” Hongbin continues. “She was…so much better than I could ever be. She had this brightness to her, like a tiny piece of sunshine lived inside her. I loved her _so much._ ” He chokes on his words—or maybe on the tears suddenly clogging his throat—and can’t speak anymore.  
  
Wonshik comes back over, perches on the edge of the desk and sets his hand down near Hongbin’s. It’s an offer, but not one he’s required to take.  
  
Hongbin reaches for his hand, feels long fingers and rough callouses, and holds on tight. He’s not sure he’s ready to share this much of himself, but it’s time. He’s been alone in his grief for too long. “Her name was Youngji.”  
  
They met while Hongbin was in technical school, training to be a mechanic. She was a barista at a little café near his school, and he went there nearly every day for coffee. At first it was because the coffee was good, but soon enough he was going there more for her than for the drink. Thanks to those daily trips, he ate more ramen than real food during his year of trade school, because his entire food budget was being spent on coffee. He never regretted it.  
  
He waited until a week before graduation to ask her out, and she actually laughed at him. She said she’d wondered when he would finally get up the courage. She was beautiful when she laughed.  
  
They were married the following fall, and by then Hongbin had a good job working in a repair shop. They lived in a little apartment that was almost exactly between his job and hers, and they were happy. Hongbin was so in love that it hurt sometimes, but she made him happy.  
  
He worked so hard to provide for her. Eventually he bought his own shop, a car, a house in the suburbs where the air was cleaner. She laughed every time he bought her something new, and she always told him that the only thing she truly needed was his love. It was cheesy and stupid but Hongbin believed it. He knew that even if they lost everything, they’d be okay as long as they were together.  
  
They never had children, though they’d wanted them. But even without kids, they were happy. Their time together was the happiest of Hongbin’s life. But then there was the Black Lung. After ten years of marriage, he lost her. There was nothing he could do, nothing anyone could do, and he knew that. But it was devastating.  
  
“She died in my arms,” he admits, still holding Wonshik’s hand. “When the doctors told me there was nothing more they could do, I just…held her to my chest and told her it was okay. That was the only lie that I ever told her, when I said that I’d be okay after she left me.” He falls silent then, because he can’t talk about this anymore. This is more than he told Hakyeon, more than he’s even admitted to himself in a very long time, and he’s not sure how he managed to get it all out without breaking down completely.  
  
Wonshik’s free hand cups Hongbin’s cheek and his thumb brushes away tears Hongbin hadn’t realized he shed. He doesn’t say a word, just pulls Hongbin forward out of the chair and folds him to his chest. It’s so very close to the way that Hongbin held her that day that he almost starts crying in earnest.  
  
But Wonshik’s hands are gentle, rubbing his back and stroking through his hair. It has been so very long since anyone has comforted him this way, but it feels good. Wonshik, though Hongbin barely knows him, somehow makes him feel safe. And that’s something Hongbin needs right now, so he doesn’t speak any more, and lets Wonshik hold him.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm leaving town tomorrow and I haven't packed yet. This chapter has some more big reveals, huzzah! And on the plus side, I wrote another 2k words this week, so there will be an update next week as usual. And if I'm lucky I'll be able to maintain this and keep posting until the fic is done. Please enjoy!

Later, when Hongbin has recovered some and washed the tear tracks from his face, Wonshik is still there. He sits on a clear bit of desk in his pressed slacks and a rich blue suit jacket that seems tailored to his form, looking for all the world like he belongs exactly there. Hongbin wouldn’t mind that so much, having Wonshik here all the time, having someone to talk to when the days get long and tedious. He’s sure it wouldn’t be as good in practice as it sounds in his head, but the thought is nice anyway. He hasn’t thought about enjoying anyone else’s presence since she died.  
  
Even being able to think about her, about the fact that she died and left him behind, is so strange it’s jarring. She was his everything, the most precious part of his life, and when she was gone he was lost. Figuring out who he was without her almost broke him. No, correction, it did break him. He turned to Hakyeon, to becoming a cyborg in the hopes that his feelings would go with his humanity.  
  
Now he’s stuck like this, robot enough that he’ll live longer than just about anyone else, but not robot enough that his emotions are gone. He has to live every day knowing that he mutilated himself, did something taboo and illegal, just to get away from feelings that have only overtaken him even more since the work started. He needs a distraction from that, and the work that Wonshik is doing can be one, even if Hongbin’s not sure that he trusts himself to let Wonshik as a person be part of his life.  
  
“So where are we at,” he asks Wonshik, flopping down into his computer chair with a sigh. He thinks about putting a pot of coffee on, but he supposes he should have thought of that before sitting down.  
  
Wonshik has been staring at the floor just in front of his own feet, but he looks up now and blinks at Hongbin for a moment like he’s processing where he actually is. “What?” he asks, tilting his head, and then it’s like all at once it comes flooding back and he says, “Ah, right. Ken is settled at the safe-house and we’re working on his new identity. We’ve had no luck in locating either his files or Leo’s, but we’re still looking.”  
  
“Taekwoon,” Hongbin corrects, realizing that Wonshik doesn’t know yet. “His name wasn’t Leo, it was Jung Taekwoon. He was,” he pauses, lets himself decide to share this because it’s important, and rewords, “he _is_ married to Cha Hakyeon.”  
  
Hongbin registers surprise on Wonshik’s face. “Wait,” Wonshik says, “you know Hakyeon?”  
  
He feels his face mirror Wonshik’s—eyebrows raised, mouth slightly agape—and replies, “Yes. How do you know him?”  
  
Wonshik brushes it off, waves his hand and wipes the astonished look off his face. “We’ve worked with him before. He doesn’t know what we do, exactly, but we’ve gone to him for help with some of the people we’ve rescued who weren’t lucky enough to have you as their engineer.”  
  
“And you, what,” Hongbin asks, still stuck on _Wonshik knows Hakyeon_ , “tell him they have amnesia? You realize that inaccurate information like that could cause problems with his diagnosis, right?”  
  
“I’m aware,” Wonshik responds. “But we also have to be careful who we tell about this stuff. It was a risk bringing _you_ in, and you’re apparently paranoid as fuck.” He waves a hand around, apparently encompassing the entire lab and the fact that Hongbin has carefully prevented it from being infiltrated with surveillance equipment.  
  
“So is Hakyeon. And he knows now. I couldn’t exactly hide it from him after his husband mysteriously came back from the dead,” Hongbin deadpans. He’s feeling remarkably calm about this. Besides the initial surprise there is no panic, no sudden rush of fear. Maybe the new meds are working, maybe the tune-up helped, or maybe he just knows that Wonshik isn’t a threat to him.  
  
“Well, at least I know he’s trustworthy,” Wonshik says. “And with his situation, he has a reason to want us to succeed.” He shakes his head, staring at the floor again as if he’s contemplating this new development.  
  
Hongbin lets him think. There’s a lot to think about, with everything that’s happening. Hongbin still isn’t sure how he went from complete solitude and no responsibilities to this in less than a week. Part of him is still reeling, and the other part just wants to lie down and stop trying. He’s been working fruitlessly for too long. He’s too old for saving the world. But the strange young man next to him, the two cyborgs that he helped free from the company that created them, and the countless other people who need _someone’s_ help seem to be looking to him.  
  
Wonshik looks up again, and he asks quietly, “How do _you_ know Hakyeon?”  
  
Well then, moment of truth. “He’s a friend of mine,” he says, and then considers. He trusts Wonshik, at least to the extent that he trusts anyone anymore. And given some of the things Wonshik has said in the past, the opinions he seems to hold, Hongbin doesn’t think that Wonshik will judge him. So softly, in a voice as weak as a body wracked with Black Lung, he adds, “And he’s my doctor.”  
  
Wonshik nods, and he doesn’t even seem surprised. He just meets Hongbin eyes squarely and remarks, “I thought that might be the case.”  
  
“You’re not shocked?” Hongbin asks, just to check. Wonshik doesn’t look shocked. There’s no reason for Hongbin to think that he is, but he wants to hear it just the same.  
  
Wonshik shakes his head and leans back, affecting a very casual posture, as he says, “It wasn’t that hard to figure out.”  
  
Hongbin blanches. “Am I that obvious?” he says quietly. He stares at his hands, flexing them in his lap, embarrassed or afraid or he doesn’t even know at this point.  
  
Wonshik’s hands catch his and he looks up, to see Wonshik staring very intensely at him. “You’re not,” he insists. “The tremors in your arm…I told you I get them too, didn’t I?” His eyes have locked onto Hongbin’s and it’s like it’s impossible to look away.  
  
But Hongbin can hear the implications in what Wonshik is saying. He knows what caused the tremors. He knows that _Wonshik_ understands what caused them. So if Wonshik gets them too, the only possible reason for it is, “You’re a cyborg too.”  
  
A shaky nod, and then Wonshik’s hands are separating from Hongbin’s (when did they get so tangled?) to shrug out of his jacket and push up the right sleeve of his soft knit shirt. Along his forearm and just above his elbow there’s some odd scarring and small metal pins that seem to be holding synthesized flesh onto his real skin. “I worked in a factory when I was twenty-four,” he explains, his voice strangely distant. He’s not looking at Hongbin. “There was an accident, some of the equipment slipped, and my right arm was mangled. They wanted to amputate just above the elbow.”  
  
Hongbin hears himself let out a sharp gasp and sees his hands reaching for Wonshik’s before he’s really thought about it. “Wonshik, I’m so sorry.”  
  
“I didn’t have anything else,” Wonshik says, and when he looks up again his smile is brittle and cracking at the edges. “Without my arm, I couldn’t work, couldn’t support my little sister. There weren’t a lot of options. But I…was a hacker, for lack of a better word,” he throws Hongbin an odd expression at this, his eyes bright with something he doesn’t have a word for. “I found information about the process and managed to locate someone who could do the work.”  
  
Hongbin waits, and realizes that Wonshik is studying him for a reaction. He’s not sure how he’s supposed to react, though. Is he supposed to be shocked? Pitying? Offended? None of those things seem appropriate, and Hongbin is all too familiar with the mindset that could lead a person to make such a choice.  
  
“It saved my arm,” he says, gesturing at the limb again. Hongbin can see that the synthesized skin only covers part of it, like a sleeve from just above his elbow down to a spot about a third of the way up his forearm. “Once the arm was done, I figured I may as well go all in. I asked Hakyeon to finish the process.”  
  
This time Hongbin does react, though he figures he should have guessed. How else would Wonshik know Hakyeon? It wasn’t like he worked with just anyone. “Hakyeon did it,” he says. He can’t seem to phrase it like a question.  
  
Wonshik nods and then he slides off the desk to crouch in front of Hongbin instead. It takes a moment for Hongbin to realize why—his breath is coming too fast. He’s on the verge of a panic attack and Wonshik is worried about him…again. “Hakyeon saved my life. He gave my little sister a chance at a better life. That’s why I’m doing this now.”  
  
Hongbin breathes deeply and wills himself to calm down. Everything is fine. He’s _glad_ that Wonshik told him. But there are other things he needs to know too, things he has to understand. “So your skill with computers,” he begins.  
  
“I was a hacker before,” Wonshik repeats. “But after the work…I can process code so much faster now. I can read faster, remember things easier. My job—my new job—is a thousand times easier like this.” He’s still holding Hongbin’s hands. It’s nice, comforting. His hands are strong and warm and Hongbin rather likes how they fit into his own.  
  
“The person you work for,” Hongbin tries again, unsure how to phrase the question he needs to ask, “do they know what you are?”  
  
Wonshik chuckles. “It’s better that _no one_ know what I am, Hongbin. The less people who know, the less likely I’ll get arrested and then deconstructed.”  
  
God, Hongbin did not need the reminder of what they do to illegal cyborgs. Is that what will happen to Taekwoon, to Ken and the others if the government finds out what the company’s been doing? He takes another deep breath and presses on. “What about your sister?” he asks.  
  
Wonshik’s lips turn up in a wry little smile. “She knows what I am, if that’s what you’re asking.” Apparently he can see from Hongbin’s face that it isn’t, so he continues, “She’s married. They’re expecting their third child in the spring.” _She’s human_ , he’s saying. She didn’t go through the same work that Wonshik did. She didn’t give up on her humanity.  
  
Hongbin feels relief he doesn’t have a reason for, other than that he wouldn’t wish this fate on anyone. He doesn’t know how Wonshik will take this thought, so instead he asks, “How old are you really?”  
  
He gets a smirk in response. “I could ask the same of you,” Wonshik points out. “But if you really want to know, I’m thirty-seven.” Not as young as Hongbin thought then. Still bright and optimistic, but maybe it’s possible to hold onto your optimism after thirty. Wonshik has certainly managed it. “Your turn,” Wonshik prompts, nudging Hongbin’s knee with his arm. “How old are you really?”  
  
Hongbin feels a stupid blush filling his cheeks. Wonshik is young and bright and still in love with life, and Hongbin is depressed and pessimistic and ready to die. He’s reluctant when he admits, “I’m forty-five.”  
  
Wonshik whistles, low. “You look like you’re twenty-five, tops,” he says. “When did you have the work done?”  
  
“I was thirty,” Hongbin admits. He remembers when he met Hakyeon—he was young, fresh, a lot like Wonshik. He had just finished medical school, had been studying robotics by himself since he was eleven.  Hongbin was one of his first successful jobs. Before him, a lot of Hakyeon’s patients had rejected their hardware. But Hongbin had been desperate, and he’d been willing to take a chance. Maybe it was his desperation that made the surgery successful. “I was thirty and my wife was dead and I was alone. I wanted to forget.”  
  
“But it didn’t work,” Wonshik observes quietly. His hands tighten over Hongbin’s. He’s doing a lot of comforting today.  
  
“No, it didn’t,” Hongbin agrees. “Instead I became something I never wanted to be, and sentenced myself to a long, long life without her. In hindsight, it probably would have been better if I’d just offed myself.”  
  
Wonshik shakes his head, and there’s fire in his eyes. “If you’d done that, I never would have met you.”  
  
There’s no humor to the smile that Hongbin gives him. “That probably would have been better.”  
  
“No it wouldn’t,” Wonshik insists. “Look, I know it’s probably none of my business, but you _do_ still have things to offer the world. You’re smart and talented and you can make a _difference_. You care about people, even people that no one else considers people. Your life is still worth something.”  
  
“It’s not,” Hongbin whispers. He pulls his hands from Wonshik’s and pushes the chair back so they’re not in contact anymore. Wonshik’s young and naïve and enthusiastic and in love with life and Hongbin is _not_. He can’t be, because that would mean admitting that he’s allowed to be happy without her, that anything could ever be okay again when she no longer exists. “I hurt everyone I’m near. I’m not a good influence.”  
  
“Then make yourself better. Do your best not to hurt people,” Wonshik says. He’s still kneeling on the floor, staring up at Hongbin with such hope in his eyes. He truly believes in Hongbin and that’s _terrifying_. “Change until you’re doing good instead of harm. It’s never too late.”  
  
Hongbin shakes his head. “It is for me.” He gestures around him, at this lab and the half-life he’s built for himself. “This is all I am, now. It’s all I’ll ever be. That machine,” he points at the bot-stand, the robots that made Taekwoon and Ken, “made me who I am, and I can’t go back.”  
  
He’s shaking all over, but he can’t seem to stop himself. God, he’s not made for this. He doesn’t want to be here, talking to Wonshik, any longer. Maybe it’s not too late to give up on all this.  
  
Wonshik rises and his face is steel. Hongbin can’t read a single emotion from him. “You can always go back, Hongbin,” he says. “The only people who can’t are the ones who refuse to try.”  
  
He turns and walks out then, with his suit jacket slung over his shoulder, and all Hongbin can think as he watches him go is, _well, I expected this. No one sticks around forever._


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, I'm so wiped. Today was day 4 of VBS and while I love all of those preschoolers, they are literally the most exhausting creatures ever to exist. Anyway! Here's a new chapter. We've got some history, and Hongbin making some adult decisions, and finally we start to see hints of that pairing that I keep insisting is supposed to be there. *le gasp* Please enjoy!

  
He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s just been sitting here, staring at his equipment, at the pile of reject bots in the corner that Ken wouldn’t let him dispose of and the sad barrenness of a place that he’s practically lived in for the past twelve years.  
  
It dawns on him that he’s been working for this company for _twelve fucking years_ and he’s accomplished absolutely nothing. But of course he hasn’t. He never wanted to become a hotshot bot designer. He just wanted a distraction—any distraction, as long as he didn’t have to think of her and the things he had lost.  
  
It was never enough. And at first he’d thought maybe he could fix it somehow—reverse things, go back to before any of it had happened. But Hongbin’s not stupid and despite the hardware inside him and the drinking and the pills, he wasn’t completely delusional. He knew which things he could change and which he couldn’t. He knew the limitations of life and death.  
  
He knows them still. He knows that Hakyeon has maybe ten more years if he’s really lucky, ten years that he’ll spend aging and then die of Black Lung or some other horrible disease while his ageless cyborg husband watches and can do nothing. He knows that Wonshik’s sister, her husband and children, they’ll all die someday too.  
  
Hongbin knows that people like him, people like Wonshik and Taekwoon and Ken, will always watch the people that they love age and die and will be able to do absolutely nothing about it, because that’s what being human _is._ Cyborgs don’t age as quickly or at all, and they don’t die as easily, and it would be easy to say that the work is a solution to all of humanity’s problems except for the fact that it’s _not_. Because life is not some fairytale, and despite Wonshik’s luck, a cyborg is never a good thing to be.  
  
Cyborgs aren’t safe. There are reasons that it’s illegal to have the work done, and consequences if you’re caught. Hongbin never cared much, because it would be just as well if he was arrested, if they found him guilty and dismantled him. That’s what happens when you’re a cyborg: according to the law, you’re no longer human, and the very nature of cyborgs makes them “unpredictable and dangerous.” So they take you to a government facility, they disassemble you like a bot, and they use the pieces for “research.”  
  
Hongbin has heard the stories. It’s been said that the doctors and scientists that work in those facilities never stay on long, in spite of the cushiness of holding a government position. He’s been told that they don’t use anesthetic and that the screams haunt anyone who ever works there. Hongbin would not be surprised if all of this is true. But even if it isn’t, the sentence is still the same: if you’re caught, you’re dead.  
  
And the reason for that is this: about a hundred years before Hongbin was born, back when androids of any kind were rare and expensive, someone found a way to synthesize metal into human flesh. It was highly experimental, highly controversial, and presented as a solution to Black Lung. Steel lungs didn’t rot away like human tissue did; theoretically it was a perfect solution.  
  
The government was desperate, and the research was approved. They took volunteers and replaced their lungs, and then their limbs, and soon the people experimented on were more metal than flesh, and the public cried out in outrage and demanded the government put a stop to it. But the populations were low—lower than they’d been since the third World War, a century and a half before—and the government officials were reluctant. The research was helping people, wasn’t it? It was saving lives.  
  
The attacks started about…seventeen months in. Some of these people, the _cyborgs_ , had so little of their humanity left. The mix-up of motherboard versus brain slowly drove them mad, and they could no longer tell loved one from attacker, friend from foe. Many of them went berserk and killed people. And the more this happened, the more people realized a most terrifying fact: there were more cyborgs than anyone had realized. They were taking over, and they were unstable.  
  
The government shut down the research, closed down all the facilities that did the work, purportedly erased all the data on how it was done. They passed the law banning cyborgs, and unanimously agreed on the swiftest, fiercest punishment for the guilty.  
  
And no one could protest. How could they, when nearly everyone had seen a cyborg kill someone right in front of them? Or when the person who used to live down the street from them had gone crazy? It had affected nearly the entire population in some way, and so they all stayed silent, watched their loved ones (even those who were sane still) be carted away in police vans and told themselves that it was for the best, that they were only protecting those who were still human, still _worthy_.  
  
Hongbin wonders how many of those people never slept another full night in their lives, knowing that they could have stopped so many meaningless deaths and chose not to, because they put the lives of some people over the lives of others. Maybe they justified themselves by insisting that the cyborgs were no longer human, that they were machines, and broken, and just being shut down. Maybe they answered to God, or to whatever you face at the end of your life. But Hongbin cannot believe that any of them were innocent, in refusing to even consider another solution.  
  
He can’t believe that anyone would believe cyborgs are unhuman, because the way he feels now, with his chest burning with regret and a thick lump of guilt in his throat, is the most human he’s felt since his wife died.  
  
\---  
  
Hongbin spends the day absently sketching bot designs on a tablet with a well-worn stylus. He’s not sure he’s ever going to use them, not sure that he’s ever going to have the courage to make another bot, cyborg or no, but if he doesn’t do _something_ then he’s going to fall right back into the mental state that the medication is supposed to keep him out of.  
  
So he makes vague designs. He finishes disposing of the reject bots, whispering apologies because _he honestly isn’t sure_ that he hasn’t done something terrible to sentient beings. He avoids, at all costs, the pages of data that are still open on his computer screen, because he doesn’t want to think about it. But eventually he runs out of things to do, and it’s reaching the hour that normal people get off work anyway.  
  
He should shut down his console, he _should._ But he finds himself sitting down in the chair instead, slowly scanning through the lines of code, the lists of files. This is everything that’s left of his wife—all of the memories that he could scrounge up, every tiny detail of her existence.  
  
What he did, in a fit of grief, was just as taboo and illegal and _stupid_ as becoming a cyborg had been. But when he attempted to erase his feelings and it didn’t work, he was willing to give anything just to have her back.  
  
Hongbin closes the files, shoves all of the thoughts of her and his grief and the choices he made out of his head, and shuts down his console. He can’t let himself go back there, and he doesn’t know what else to do. So for now he gets ready to leave, to go home from work like a normal person. He isn’t sure what being a normal person is like anymore, but he imagines it involves things like a steady schedule and evening meals and apologizing to people that he’s offended.  
  
He wonders briefly if Wonshik would even pick up the phone if he called. He’s not sure that Wonshik will want to talk to him, and he wouldn’t blame him for ignoring Hongbin entirely. He’s a shit person and he knows it, and he isn’t surprised that Wonshik got sick of him sooner rather than later. But he does want to help Wonshik, if he can. He wants the company to be stopped just as badly as Wonshik does.  
  
Making his decision, he orders the heavy lab door open and strides down the long hallway to the elevator bank. His dress shoes make bright clicking noises against the cement floor, and he forces himself to relish in them instead of shrinking away. He can’t keep running from everything.  
  
There are only three buttons Hongbin has ever pushed in the elevator: the lobby, B18, and the ‘close door’ button. He presses B9 and lets out a heavy breath. He can do this. He has to.  
  
IT’s floor is so different from Hongbin’s own. There are very few walls between work areas, and those that exist are lined with windows. He doesn’t think he would like working here. He would feel too exposed all the time. But he steps out into the flurry of activity, and tries not to let the noise overwhelm him.  
  
There are so many people talking all at once—some are working, others are getting ready to leave, still others seem to just be talking for the sake of talking—and everything is brightly colored and cheerful. Hongbin sees the swish of skirts, the flick of long hair, and painted nails dancing quickly over keyboards. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen so many women in one room.  
  
Since Wonshik is a minority here, it should be easy to spot him. But Hongbin can’t find that head of short red hair, or broad shoulders towering over everyone else. _Maybe he’s already gone home,_ Hongbin thinks. But he already decided that he would try, so he steps over to the nearest occupied desk and stops in front of it.  
  
The woman sitting there is tapping rapidly at her keyboard with fingers tipped in electric blue. She flicks her head to the side and her deep violet curls swing about her shoulders. There was a time, very long ago, that Hongbin would have thought her attractive. Now he just clears his throat so that she looks up at him.  
  
“Can I help you?” she asks. She blinks up at him like she’s trying to get her eyes to refocus after staring at a computer screen for too long.  
  
Hongbin hesitates. He wonders if maybe he should have tried calling Wonshik first. But he’s here now, so he may as well do what he came to do. “I’m actually looking for someone. Wonshik?”  
  
She frowns. Her thick brows draw together and she hums low in her throat. “I don’t think there’s anyone here by that name,” she says. Turning to the woman at the desk behind her, she asks, “Is there anyone in this department named Wonshik?”  
  
The other woman barely turns before shrugging narrow shoulders. “No one I know.”  
  
The first woman turns back to Hongbin, also shrugging. It causes the shimmery fabric of her shirt to ripple like water and Hongbin finds himself fascinated for a moment. “Sorry, Hun,” the woman is saying, “I don’t think I can help you.”  
  
That can’t be right though. IT _sent_ Wonshik to Hongbin’s lab more than once. He _has_ to work here. “Are you sure?” he asks, because maybe she just doesn’t remember. “He’s about my height, with really short dark red hair. He was wearing a blue suit today.”  
  
Her eyebrows rise and her gray eyes pull wide in recognition. “Oh, you mean Ravi,” she says. “He’s in the back.” She points down the row of desks, towards where two walled offices make a sort of hallway into another large room similar to the one they’re in.  
  
“Oh,” Hongbin says, somewhat dumbly, as he blinks at her. _Who the hell is Ravi?_ he wants to ask. Instead he thanks her and heads in the direction she pointed, trying his very hardest to ignore the people who stare at him as if they know that he’s an outsider.  
  
Wonshik is indeed in the back, surrounded by a gaggle of women who are all laughing at something he’s just said. One of them hits him playfully, clinging tightly to his right arm. Hongbin wonders if she can feel that something’s off, beneath the two layers of clothing that Wonshik wears. He can’t imagine that she would be so calm and flirty if she had noticed.  
  
Wonshik laughs bright and loud, and his head tips back with his mirth, his eyes sparkling. He’s stunning, and Hongbin knows that he’s not even worthy to be in Wonshik’s presence, but he has to try.  
  
Haltingly, Hongbin steps forward. His legs are shaking and everything he’s thought of saying to Wonshik suddenly flees his head and he freezes, one foot in front of the other, and just watches Wonshik. Wonshik is young and bright and alive. In spite of everything he’s seen and everything he’s been through, Wonshik is still optimistic of a better future. Hongbin will spoil him, and he suddenly wonders if it’s worth it, being near Wonshik.  
  
Head dropping as his laughter ebbs away, Wonshik’s eyes lock onto Hongbin’s. His gaze is heavy, his eyes intense. It feels like he’s reading Hongbin’s soul.  
  
Hongbin finishes his step so that his feet are on even ground and just stands there as Wonshik gives his companions excuses and rises. He buttons his suit jacket and strides over to Hongbin with a steadiness and confidence that Hongbin wishes he could have.  
  
“Hey,” Wonshik murmurs, laying a hand on Hongbin’s arm. “Everything okay?”  
  
Hongbin is shaking, minute tremors all over his body. He was fine. He was _fine_ until he saw Wonshik and now suddenly all of the calm that he built up over the weekend means nothing. “We need to talk,” Hongbin says, willing his voice to be steady, to match Wonshik’s soft, private tone.  
  
Wonshik nods and his hand slides to Hongbin’s elbow to guide him through a door into a side room. It’s a kitchenette from the looks of it, countertop and small fridge and coffee pot. It’s possibly the only room on this entire floor besides the bathrooms that has real walls, protecting them from prying eyes.  
  
Closing the door behind them, Wonshik turns to lean against it. His body blocks the one small window that looks in here.  
  
Hongbin lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He can do this. “I’m sorry,” he says first. He is sorry, for a lot of things. He’s sorry that he upset Wonshik. He’s sorry that he can’t be what Wonshik needs him to be. He’s sorry that he’s a poison—that he drags everyone down with him into this personal hell that he’s made for himself.  
  
“Good,” Wonshik says. “Then do better.”  
  
“I’ll try,” Hongbin promises, hanging his head. He’s not sure he knows how.  
  
Wonshik reaches out, and his fingers wrap around Hongbin’s and squeeze and they’re warm and strong and calloused and _nothing at all_ like hers but somehow they’re exactly what Hongbin wants, what he needs.  “Hey,” Wonshik murmurs. “Look at me.”  
  
Hongbin does, lifting his eyes from his careful study of the creases of Wonshik’s knuckles to look him in the eye instead.  
  
“I don’t think you realize how amazing you are,” Wonshik says. He tugs gently at their joined hands so that Hongbin is forced to move closer. “You’ve been through a lot, but you lived. You haven’t stopped wanting to do good. The fact that you feel so guilty over what happened to Leo and Ken even though in the end they’re better off having met you tells me that you’re a much kinder person than you give yourself credit for.”  
  
“I’m not,” Hongbin protests. He can feel his hands shaking so he squeezes them tighter around Wonshik’s.  
  
Wonshik just smiles and squeezes back and tells him, “You are. You’re amazingly kind. It’s one of the reasons I like you.”  
  
Hongbin wouldn’t think anything of that statement if it weren’t for the look in Wonshik’s eyes. His gaze is intense and heated and Hongbin just _knows_ that those words weren’t completely innocent. He can also guess that if he chooses to ignore the deeper meaning behind them, Wonshik will probably drop it. “We haven’t even known each other a week,” he points out.  
  
“You’re right,” Wonshik says. He tugs Hongbin just a little bit closer, so that their chests are barely a millimeter apart. They’re so close that Hongbin can feel Wonshik’s body heat even through the layers of clothing they wear. “And I understand if you’re freaked out. But just…know that the attraction is there? If you’re ever interested.”  
  
Hongbin lets out a shaky breath and nods slowly. Wonshik isn’t asking him for anything right now, which is good because Hongbin has had the worst week ever and he really can’t process this at the moment.  
  
“It’s about time for me to get off work,” Wonshik says after a long silence. “I’ll walk you to the station?”  
  
Should he let Wonshik do that? It’s debatable, whether allowing even so platonic an advance as that is a good idea. But getting out of the building might give them a chance to talk more freely, or will at least make Hongbin feel like there isn’t anyone breathing down his neck waiting for him to make a misstep.  
  
Eventually he gives in, with a hesitant nod and a soft affirmation. He lets Wonshik wrap an arm around his shoulders and usher through the maze of desks, brushing off questions from his coworkers as they go.  
  
The elevator isn’t empty when they get on—there are a few women from IT who step in behind them, and a couple of people already there that Hongbin guesses are from sales based on their attire—and Wonshik automatically puts himself between Hongbin and everyone else. He chats with the women from IT, but skillfully dismisses any questions about Hongbin.  
  
For his part, Hongbin tries to make himself seem small and unimportant, and hopes that no one will attempt to speak directly to him. Unfortunately, he has no such luck.  
  
“Hey,” one of the women suddenly says, leaning around Wonshik to get a better look at Hongbin’s face. She’s easily head and shoulders shorter than both of them, and her golden hair is a perfect, straight bob around her chin. She narrows bright green eyes (natural or artificial, he can’t say for certain) at Hongbin and asks, “Aren’t you the dreamy mechanic from B18?”  
  
“Um,” Hongbin replies intelligently. He’s already responded now, he can’t pretend he hasn’t heard her. Fuck, what should he do?  
  
She turns on Wonshik next. “Ravi, why didn’t you tell us that you were banging the dreamy mechanic? _Jealous_ ,” she hisses. Despite the crudeness of the statement, her tone is friendly and teasing.  
  
Wonshik laughs readily enough, his arm around Hongbin’s shoulders pulling him a little closer in what is clearly supposed to be a friendly manner. Hongbin fights not to blush as Wonshik says, “Banging? Nah, I’ve just been working on his fucked-up computer terminal for the last week. We’re best buddies now.”  
  
The woman laughs too, white teeth glinting in the harsh artificial light. They’re perfectly straight and perfectly sized and either she inherited the best genetics ever or she’s had multiple correctional surgeries to get them to look that nice. “Well in that case,” she teases, returning her attention to Hongbin, “you’re welcome on B9 anytime.”  
  
Hongbin nods in what he hopes is a cheerful enough manner to get her to stop talking to him, and it seems to work. She turns next to the other woman from IT and says something about new shoes, and Hongbin tunes out of the conversation, glad that he’s not on the spot anymore.  
  
“Sorry,” Wonshik whispers in his ear, so low that even Hongbin has to strain to hear it. “My coworkers are kind of….”  
  
Hongbin shakes his head minutely and assures him, “It’s fine. I’m okay.”  
  
His arm squeezing a little tighter around Hongbin’s steady shoulders, Wonshik agrees, “Yeah, I think you will be.”

 

 


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! First of all, apologies both because this chapter is a bit later than normal and because it's also kind of short. I literally just pounded out the next 1400 words this afternoon and it still needs to go through editing. Life has been kicking my butt so I haven't gotten as much writing done as I wanted. Second, I made a tiny edit to chapter 14 because of a mathematical error. No need to go back and reread, but just know that Wonshik's accident was when he was 24, rather than 18. That is all for now! Please enjoy.

Just before they reach the monorail station Wonshik asks, “Did you start any new bots today?”  
  
“No, I….” Hongbin shakes his head. He can feel his insides curling in disgust at the thought of making anyone else into that. “I worked on some designs but I wasn’t really…feeling up to it.”  
  
Wonshik’s arm (which has not left Hongbin’s shoulders once) squeezes a little. “That’s okay. There’s always tomorrow. Just remember that they’ll be better off with you than with someone else, yeah?”  
  
Hongbin nods slowly. For once his hands are steady. “How much longer do I have to do this?” he asks.  
  
They stop at the bottom of the steps that lead to the station and Wonshik turns to face him. His hands settle on Hongbin’s shoulders and their eyes meet. “Just a little while longer,” Wonshik promises, low. “I have a plan—just give me a bit more time.”  
  
“Alright,” Hongbin agrees. “I trust you.”  
  
He sees Wonshik’s eyes widen and he knows that Wonshik understands just how important that statement was for Hongbin, especially when he says “Thank you,” in a hushed, breathless voice.  
  
Hongbin doesn’t want to walk away from Wonshik, even though he knows that he should. Something about Wonshik’s presence is soothing, and Hongbin would gladly stand here with him forever, letting the heavy foot traffic move around them.  
  
Wonshik gives him a lopsided smile and says, “Go get some sleep. You look dead on your feet.”  
  
Hongbin doesn’t feel it. In fact, he feels better, stronger than he has in a long time. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be well-fed and rested. He hadn’t spent time lost in books in years. “I’m not tired,” he says. He only realizes how childish it sounds after it’s already come out of his mouth.  
  
Wonshik’s snorting laughter says that he doesn’t mind, though. He covers his smile with one hand and attempts to stifle his giggles, but mostly fails.  
  
“Stop,” Hongbin says. He brushes off the hand still on his shoulder and makes like he’s going to walk away.  
  
“Wait, wait!” Wonshik exclaims, still fighting back chuckles. “Sorry, I’m sorry. That was just really cute.”  
  
Hongbin scrunches up his face and says, “Shut up.”  
  
Wonshik takes one final, deep breath and finally manages to get a handle on his laughter. “Sorry,” he says again. “Did you know you get wrinkles right here when you make that face?” He presses a finger to the space between Hongbin’s eyebrows.  
  
Hongbin swats his hand away. “I’m forty-five. Wrinkles are normal.”  
  
“Please,” Wonshik scoffs. He lets his hand drop. “You have the skin of a twenty-something. You know how much some people have to pay to look like that?”  
  
“A lot, I’m sure,” Hongbin says, rolling his eyes.  
  
It makes Wonshik laugh again. This is nice, standing here with Wonshik and having a normal conversation— _flirting_ even—and not feeling like he’s going to go into cardiac arrest or the world is going to crash down around him.  
  
“Alright, seriously though, go home,” Wonshik says after a moment. “I need you back at work bright and early.”  
  
Hongbin thinks that’s debatable, but he nods.  
  
Wonshik pats his shoulder and says, “That’s the spirit. Hopefully by the time you’ve designed another bot or two this’ll all be over and we can go back to our normal lives.”  
  
That’s definitely debatable. Hongbin, for one, doesn’t have a normal life to go back to. But he doesn’t say that. Instead he says, “And then maybe I can think again…about what you said.”  
  
Wonshik gives him _that_ smile, the one where his cheeks rise until they make his eyes squint closed, and it’s so beautiful and natural that Hongbin has the sudden urge to kiss him. He refrains.  
  
“Full of surprises, you are,” Wonshik says. “To be honest, I kinda figured I freaked you out and you were gonna avoid me for the rest of time.”  
  
Hongbin shakes his head, tries to come up with something to say, and then settles for reaching forward and pulling Wonshik into a hug. It’s very platonic, arms around shoulders and all, but he lets it last for a touch longer than he would with someone who was strictly a friend.  
  
Wonshik seems to take it at face value, and when they separate he graces Hongbin with another of those brilliant smiles and shoves his shoulder a little, saying, “Now go. Eat food and sleep and do normal people things. I’ll see you tomorrow.”  
  
“Yeah, you will,” Hongbin promises.  
  
\---  
  
Hongbin expects to spend the evening alone in his data card-sized apartment, making dinner for one and maybe turning on the TV to see if it still works. If it doesn’t, that would at least give him a project to focus on, one that doesn’t involve bots or cyborgs or questionable choices.  
  
What Hongbin doesn’t expect is for Hakyeon and Taekwoon to show up on his doorstep. But that’s exactly what happens.  
  
To be honest, the sound of the bell is so unfamiliar he almost doesn’t realize what it is at first, and when he does his first reaction is to panic. Who could be there? What do they want? How do they even know where he lives?  
  
But when he goes to the door panel and peers at the screen, Hakyeon’s smiling face looks back at him. Behind him, Taekwoon is hovering like a giant sentinel, his face still in that carefully blank expression that Hongbin thought for a while was the only one he was capable of.  
  
Hongbin lets them in and submits to the hug that Hakyeon forces upon him. There’s not much else he can do, seeing as Hakyeon is surprisingly strong for such a thin man, and Hongbin doesn’t really want to hurt him trying to detach his gangly limbs.  
  
“Wonshik called me,” Hakyeon says. He pulls away after a moment to look Hongbin in the face. “He said I should talk to you about…well. About the company, I guess.”  
  
Hongbin is not the person to talk to about this. He has very little idea of the plan or any of the other operations that Wonshik seems to be leading. He’s just doing what he’s told. But he waves Hakyeon and Taekwoon in and closes the door behind them. He’ll share what he can.  
  
Hakyeon looks around with unfeigned interest as he walks into the living room. This is the first time he’s been to Hongbin’s apartment. There’s really not much to look at. “You don’t spend much time here, do you?” he asks.  
  
Hongbin shrugs and shuffles over, gestures vaguely at the couch while he goes to make coffee. He happens to know that Hakyeon is obsessed with coffee. It’s one of those things that you pick up when you spend extended periods of time with someone for fifteen years.  
  
The coffee brewing, Hongbin leans against the archway between the kitchen and the living room and waits for the questions to start.  
  
Hakyeon hasn’t sat down, but he turns from the bookshelf he was perusing to examine Hongbin instead. “I know you’ve told me pretty much everything you know,” he says.  
  
Hongbin slumps against the doorframe. “I really don’t know why he sent you here,” he admits. “Wonshik has barely told _me_ anything.”  
  
“Is there anything else?” Hakyeon asks. He takes a step forward, his hands clenched tightly at his sides. “Anything at all. Please.”  
  
From the sofa, Taekwoon watches them with impassive eyes.  
  
“The other cyborgs he’s been bringing to you,” Hongbin says, “they’re all from the company.”  
  
Hakyeon’s eyes go wide and he sways on his feet. Taekwoon is immediately at his side, tucking Hakyeon close to him and holding him up. “That’s been…he’s been bringing people to me for _six months_ at least. You’re telling me that this has been happening for that long?”  
  
Hongbin lifts a hand to rub at his eyes. He’s getting another headache, damn it. Those were supposed to stop when he got his hardware updated. “Maybe longer,” he says. But then he realizes: Wonshik claimed that he’d only just found out the truth very recently. But if he’s been bringing amnesiac cyborgs to Hakyeon for _six months…_.  
  
“There’s no way to know, is there?” Hakyeon is asking. “We may never find out just how many people they’ve taken.”  
  
He’s right. He’s right and Hongbin doesn’t know what to do because all of a sudden he’s not sure that Wonshik can be trusted. “Unless they have records, then no,” Hongbin says. “And if I were doing something that illegal, I wouldn’t leave a data trail.”  
  
Hakyeon has a strange look on his face when Hongbin looks up at him. “No,” he says, “I imagine you wouldn’t.”  
  
Hongbin lets a moment of silence fill the air between them. If he doesn’t say anything then maybe the reminder of the things that he’s done will go away.  
  
“So what do we do now?” Taekwoon asks at last.  
  
Hongbin goes for the coffee pot, pours two cups and brings the second one out to Hakyeon. “We wait, I guess. And we keep our eyes and ears open.” He hesitates. Should he say something about his suspicions?  
  
“I’ll do what I can from my end,” Hakyeon agrees. He takes a bracing sip of the coffee and smiles at Hongbin over the brim of the cup. It’s brewed just the way he likes it. “Maybe with Taekwoon’s help I can figure out how to jumpstart the other cyborgs’ memories too.”  
  
Wrapping his hands around his own mug and staring into the steam that rises from it, Hongbin says, “And be…cautious with Wonshik. I don’t think he’s telling us everything.”  
  
Hakyeon laughs, surprisingly bright and loud in this small, dirty space. “That’s just Wonshik,” he says. “He likes to hide little details so that the final reveal is more dramatic. I swear he should have been a performer rather than a super spy.”  
  
Hongbin tells himself that he’s going to let Hakyeon’s words comfort him. After all, Hakyeon knows Wonshik much better than Hongbin does. And Hongbin doesn’t want to believe that Wonshik would lie to him.  
  
No matter what he does, though, he can’t seem to fully push away the niggling doubt at the back of his mind.

 


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! So sorry for the late update. I was at work all day. Also, apology in advance because I think I'm going to have to go on a brief hiatus. My current plan is just to take a week off and start posting again in July, and I really hope that I can manage that. If I have to change that plan, I'll let you know on Tumblr or Twitter. Sorry again, but life is just kicking my butt right now.

He doesn’t see Wonshik the next morning. He kind of expected him to be in his lab, but it’s empty when he walks in. Everything is exactly as he left it yesterday, like nothing has happened. It’s odd, the type of stasis that his lab falls into when he’s not there to change things. He’s not used to it.  
  
It feels barren in here without the pile of bots in the corner. Hongbin catches himself just staring at the empty space and wondering how many others there were.  
  
If Hakyeon is right, if they’ve been making cyborgs for six months or more, then Hongbin is a murderer and he can’t take that back. Nothing will ever make up for the things that he’s done. He feels it pressing on him, closing in on all sides and he can’t escape it. What does he have left to live for, when he can’t even repay all the people he’s hurt?  
  
He needs to talk to Wonshik. He doesn’t know if he’ll tell the truth even if Hongbin asks him directly, but it’s worth trying. Just last night he told Wonshik that he trusted him. He needs to prove that that’s true.  
  
When Hongbin approaches his computer terminal he realizes that the broken data card is still lying on the desk where he left it. It’s such an innocuous little piece of metal. Anyone who didn’t know better would never guess how many lives it ruined, how many laws it broke. Hongbin wishes he didn’t know better.  
  
He picks it up anyway, strokes gently over its scratch-roughened surface, and then doesn’t do what he should do. What he should do is destroy it, because it’s illegal for him to even have it and because it’s only holding him back in the terrible memories that he can’t let go. What he does do is tuck it carefully into the pocket of his white slacks and then sit down at his computer like nothing happened.  
  
He twirls the chair back and forth absently while he waits for his terminal to boot. The bright pink glow of the start-up screen doesn’t hurt as much as it does sometimes, but he still doesn’t feel like looking at it.  
  
He could make coffee. He had two cups with breakfast before he came here, but another probably wouldn’t hurt anything. (That’s a lie. He’s forty-five and that amount of caffeine is terrible for his heart, but he doesn’t give a fuck.)  
  
There’s a bottle of soju under his cot. The urge to drink it is always there, right beneath the surface of his thoughts, but he’s been sober for six months and he doesn’t want to ruin the record now. It’s a lot easier to make the decision to leave the bottle where it is than it was six months ago.  
  
The computer chirps at him and Hongbin turns to it, greets the plain gray login screen like an old friend and presses his finger to the scanner until it recognizes his credentials and lets him in. He has a job to do, one that he’s familiar and practiced at, and he’d rather focus on that than on anything else.  
  
The tablet and stylus feel comfortable in his hands. This is the part of the job that he’s always loved. This is the reason that he kept doing it even when everything was so bleak and he didn’t want to live. He lost her but he never lost his love for machines, for design, for creation.  
  
He puts the thoughts of what he’s _really_ doing out of his mind and lets himself create.  
  
\---  
  
“I’m Hyuk! And you’re Hongbin, right? Do you happen to know where my pants are?”  
  
Hongbin’s face meets his hands and he lets out a long, heartfelt groan. His new bot—cyborg, whatever—hadn’t even waited for the speech test before he hopped down off the pedestal, looked down at his state of undress, and then introduced himself in the most brash manner Hongbin has ever seen.  
  
Hyuk comes over to perch his naked butt on the desk, right about where Wonshik was sitting the last time he was here, and asks, “Are you okay?”  
  
“Yes,” Hongbin says. He’s lying. He is a liar. This is not okay. There’s a naked cyborg on his desk and he shouldn’t have done this but he hasn’t heard a single word from Wonshik in over a week and if he doesn’t give his boss something soon then he’s going to be at risk of getting fired again.  
  
“Okay then,” Hyuk says. He hops off the desk again and Hongbin half-expects there to be a giant butt smear left behind, but the surface looks the same as it did before, albeit possibly a little bit cleaner. “Can I have some pants, maybe?”  
  
Hongbin actually did prepare for that this time. He points at a pile of folded clothes on the work table against the wall to his left. He still hasn’t lifted his face from his hands. From between his fingers, he can just barely see Hyuk crossing the room to inspect them.  
“These are terrible. Don’t you have anything that wasn’t made for a grandpa?”  
  
Hongbin has the sudden urge to gnash his teeth at Hyuk, which is very immature and undignified. “Just put them on,” he begs. “You’re not going to be wearing them for that long anyway.”  
  
“Ooh,” Hyuk trills, his voice suggestive and (hopefully) teasing. “Planning to take them back off me?”  
  
“So help me, I will put you back in that machine,” Hongbin says.  
  
Hyuk laughs, a barking noise like a confused sea lion. “No you won’t. I’m too pretty to die.”  
  
And fuck, that’s really the reason that Hongbin won’t dismantle him. Because Hyuk isn’t just a bot; he’s a _person_ , and it’s not Hongbin’s decision whether he lives or dies. “I don’t know who told you that you were pretty, but they should be arrested for perjury,” he snaps.  
  
Hyuk preens anyway, showing off his sculpted torso, because okay, so Hongbin may have made an exceptionally well-built cyborg. And Hyuk’s face isn’t terrible to look at either, though his nose is just on the other side of too big. It’s made up for with sharp cheekbones and plush lips, and soft hair that falls just over his eyebrows. Alright, so he is pretty. But fuck if Hongbin’s going to admit it.  
  
“You’re awfully cynical for someone who made a specimen like me,” Hyuk says. When Hongbin makes a grumpy noise and refuses to respond, he apparently decides that his job is done and finally puts on his fucking shirt.  
  
Hongbin is busy pretending that Hyuk doesn’t exist when he ends up with a lapful of teenage cyborg.  
  
“Seriously though,” Hyuk says, casually draping his arms around Hongbin’s stiff shoulders. “Lighten up some, won’t you? You’re no fun.”  
  
“I made you a cyborg,” Hongbin retorts. “I’m not supposed to be fun.”  
  
Hyuk snorts. It makes his nostrils flare too far. It’s really ugly. “There’s nothing that says you can’t be. Sounds like your life sucks enough. No reason to be so serious on top of it.”  
  
“Please get off me,” Hongbin says. He could push Hyuk off if he really wanted, but he actually doesn’t mind that much. The kid isn’t as heavy as he looks, or maybe Hongbin is just strong enough to take his weight.  
  
“Nope,” Hyuk says, his voice bright. “Not until you smile for me.”  
  
“You’re terrible.” Hongbin considers just pushing the kid to the floor. It probably wouldn’t hurt him, although Hongbin hasn’t done any of the usual checks to make sure the kid is even assembled properly. “Does everything feel alright?”  
  
Hyuk blinks at him for a moment and then says, “Oh, you mean like am I put together right?” He looks down at his own arms, flexes his fingers experimentally and rotates his ankles. “I think so. Sorry, you probably wanted to check, didn’t you?”  
  
It’ll be even more awkward with someone who can talk back at him while he’s doing it, but he does want to make sure that there’s nothing that’ll malfunction later. “Yes please,” he says.  
  
“Okay,” Hyuk says. “But first, that smile.”  
  
Hongbin sighs deeply. It’s going to be a long day.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is this? An update? I'm really sorry for the 3-month-long hiatus, guys. I had a lot of life shit that I had to deal with and two of my siblings got married this summer, so things were hectic. But here's a (slightly short) chapter, and there will be another next week for sure, and hopefully I can get in the habit of writing again so that the updates can continue. Thank you so much for your patience and please enjoy!

Hongbin can feel himself shivering nervously as he listens to the phone ring. Across the room, Hyuk is watching him carefully as if he might spontaneously combust at any moment. Hongbin’s not entirely convinced that that’s not the case.  
  
“You’ve reached IT. This is Ravi,” a rough, deep voice says over the line.  
  
Hongbin freezes up. He knows why he called but suddenly he doesn’t know what to say.  
  
“Hello?”  
  
Hongbin glances at Hyuk and steels his resolve. He’s got this. “Hey, it’s me,” he says. He hopes his voice sounds normal. “I could use some help with my computer, if you’ve got the time?”  
  
Wonshik’s voice changes when he realizes who he’s talking to. It gets brighter and he says, “Hongbin! Sorry, I didn’t look at who was calling before I answered.” There are some clacking noises like Wonshik is typing on his keyboard, and then he says, “I’ve got a little time. I’ll be right there.”  
  
It’ll be the first time Hongbin has seen him since Wonshik’s confession, and since Hongbin found out Wonshik has been keeping things from him. He’s not sure whether he’s excited or terrified. “Good,” he says. “I’ll see you soon.”  
  
When he disconnects the call, Hongbin can still feel Hyuk’s eyes on him and knows that he doesn’t look as calm as he was pretending to be. He feels more like he’s still falling apart, and though his hands aren’t shaking, the rest of him seems to be. It’s like there’s electricity buzzing along his skin, making all of his nerves extra sensitive. He’s pretty sure that he’s _not_ actually being electrocuted, though with the amount of hardware inside him that’s actually a very real possibility.  
  
It feels like it’s only been a few moments, but his door buzzes and Hongbin realizes it must be Wonshik. He orders it open and waits with bated breath until Wonshik comes into view.  
  
He’s just as handsome as always, but there are subtle differences since the last time Hongbin saw him. He’s wearing thick, plastic-framed glasses and there’s an extra piercing in his ear, a small silver stud in his earlobe lined up next to the first one. His hair is still short but it’s growing out, the soft fuzz starting to look thicker and fuller than before. It’s coming in dark, and it’s good to know that Wonshik’s natural hair color is black, after all.  
  
Wonshik’s all smiles as he greets Hongbin, and then he turns and sees Hyuk and he says, “So I take it there’s not actually anything wrong with your computer.”  
  
Hongbin makes himself laugh, and he can’t tell if it sounds forced or not, but Wonshik doesn’t seem to notice anything weird. “No, uh, not exactly,” he agrees.  
  
“Oh shit, I didn’t give you any of the tools for this, huh?” Wonshik says. His laughter is more genuine than Hongbin’s, and maybe a little embarrassed. “You haven’t been just sitting around waiting for me to give you instructions, have you?”  
  
Hongbin doesn’t want to admit that maybe that is what he’s been doing. He didn’t want to make the decision to make another cyborg. He was kind of maybe hoping that Wonshik would have his plan figured out before Hongbin had to make that choice. “No,” he says. “I was just…taking my time. I didn’t really….” He doesn’t know how to finish that sentence.  
  
“You didn’t want to make another?” Wonshik asks wisely. He gives Hongbin the gentlest look he’s ever seen, like he’ll break if even Wonshik’s expression is too gruff.  
  
Hongbin doesn’t need to be coddled. “Something like that,” he says.  
  
Hyuk bounces up before the conversation can go any further, before Wonshik can be sympathetic and exactly not what Hongbin needs right now. “You must be Wonshik!” he says. “Hongbin told me you were coming.” He plucks at the sleeve of Wonshik’s fuzzy green sweater. “Your fashion sense is almost as bad as his,” he adds.  
  
Wonshik snorts. “Did he get his manners from you?” he asks Hongbin, gesturing at Hyuk with a thumb over his shoulder. It’s meant to be a joke. It’s clearly meant to be a joke, but it makes something inside Hongbin seize up painfully anyway.  
  
“God I hope not,” Hongbin hears himself saying. Why is he doing this? Why is he doing any of this? He doesn’t want to be here.  
  
Wonshik and Hyuk’s voices fade into the background noise of his own thoughts, and he gets stuck in a mantra of “wrong, wrong, wrong.” He doesn’t even know what he’s fighting anymore. Everything feels broken and strange. He was supposed to be better.  
  
“Hongbin?” Wonshik’s voice is soft, his hands gentle on Hongbin’s shoulders. His eyes are very, very dark behind the lenses of his glasses, and Hongbin can’t stop staring into them. He should probably look away but he can’t bring himself to. “Just breathe,” Wonshik says, and his hands rub slowly up and down Hongbin’s arms.  
  
Hongbin breathes. The world distorts and centers itself again and he’s still looking into Wonshik’s eyes.  
  
Wonshik is looking back at him and he smiles while Hongbin blinks rapidly. “There you are,” he says. His voice is very deep and very comforting and Hongbin wants to bury himself in it and never come out.  
  
“Hey,” he manages to say, and maybe that was weird. Maybe he shouldn’t be greeting Wonshik like he’d gone somewhere. Hongbin has been here the whole time, sitting in his desk chair and freaking out over nothing while Wonshik worries about him.  
  
“You okay?” Wonshik asks. He’s kneeling on the floor. He always seems to end up there when he comes to see Hongbin.  
  
Hongbin takes a deep breath and lets it out. “Well,” he says, lets his lips curl up into a smile he doesn’t feel, “my dead wife didn’t show up this time, so I think I’m good.”  
  
Wonshik’s brow furrows, his pretty lips curve into a frown and he squeezes Hongbin’s biceps. “That’s…Hongbin, that’s terrible. Are you sure you should be working?”  
  
He didn’t know. He didn’t know and Hongbin just shared one of his biggest secrets without a second thought. But Wonshik already knew all of his other secrets; he might as well know this one too.  
  
Hongbin shrugs. “Same issues everyone in my situation faces,” he says quietly. He can’t bring himself to say what he is, still, especially not in front of Hyuk.  
  
“Not like this,” Wonshik insists. There are three little lines between his eyebrows. “Hasn’t Hakyeon given you anything for this? It shouldn’t keep you from functioning.”  
  
Hongbin laughs. He doesn’t know why he laughs, since it’s not funny, but he finds himself laughing and can’t stop and this is that whole cyborg thing all over again, isn’t it? This emotion isn’t real but he can’t help reacting to it and now Wonshik is going to think he’s completely useless because he can’t even do his job without having panic attacks and seeing dead people and laughing at absolutely nothing.  
  
“Hakyeon has upped my dosage and changed my meds dozens of times,” he tells Wonshik. “It helps for a little while, and then she always comes back. It’s just a matter of time.”  
  
One of Wonshik’s hands travels from Hongbin’s shoulder to his neck and cups it gently. “You shouldn’t have to live like this,” he whispers.  
  
“It’s all I’ve ever known,” Hongbin replies. “I barely remember my life without her in it.”  
  
“Gross,” Hyuk interrupts. “Can we be done with the awkward heart-to-hearts now?”  
  
Hongbin is seriously considering dismantling the kid.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is short again, and the next one isn't finished yet. But I'm gonna bust my butt trying to get it done, okay? Plan for an update next week unless I say otherwise. This chapter is mostly set-up so that things can actually happen in the next one? I didn't know where I was going with this until like three days ago, so please bear with me if it seems weird. I promise I have a plan now.

Wonshik gets Hongbin the tools he needs to make Hyuk look like a bot, and then they put on a show and Hongbin sends Hyuk off with his boss. As soon as they’re gone, he calls Wonshik to tell him that Hyuk is moving.  
  
“Thanks, Hongbin,” Wonshik says, just before he disconnects the call. “I’ll come see you after work, okay?”  
  
Hongbin doesn’t even get a chance to respond, but he supposes it doesn’t matter. Even if he’s not sure that he trusts Wonshik completely, he finds that he can’t really give up an opportunity to see him. Wonshik’s presence makes him feel calm like nothing has in a very, very long time. He wonders if that’s the way other people live all the time.  
  
Working is weird still, and Hongbin draws plans that he doesn’t ever want to use, and he goes back to assembling that arm that’s been sitting on his work table for almost two weeks because he might not be planning to build model K anymore—Ken, he’s a person named Ken—but working with his hands helps calm him.  
  
Mostly he drinks too much coffee and still forgets to eat sometimes and spends a lot of time sitting on his desk chair and spinning in circles while staring at nothing. But it’s something. He’s where he needs to be right now, or so he tells himself when his computer chirps with a message from his boss that his newest bot sold in twenty minutes and if he’d just get his ass in gear he could return to his previous spot as the company’s top engineer.  
  
Hongbin doesn’t want to be the top engineer; he just wants all of this to stop. He’s pretty sure that he has enough money to support himself for the rest of his unnaturally long life, and even if he didn’t he doesn’t think that he could bear to work for these people for another moment. He can’t wait until Wonshik gets the rest of what he needs, until they can shut this operation down for good.  
  
His door chimes and in waltzes Wonshik, looking as gorgeous as always. Hongbin has given up on trying to pretend that he doesn’t find Wonshik attractive, and instead admires the way Wonshik’s dress slacks fit him and the way his muscles shift underneath his light sweater. He doesn’t know if Wonshik realizes just how much the soft material clings to the contours of his pectorals, but he’s unwilling to point it out.  
  
Wonshik’s smile is sunshine itself, and he comes over to the desk. Hongbin expects him to perch on it, in the place that Hongbin has somehow already started thinking of as Wonshik’s spot, but instead he takes Hongbin’s hands and pulls him up.  
  
“What’s going on?” Hongbin asks. He tries not to be really freaked out by this. Wonshik probably has a perfectly reasonable explanation, and he just hasn’t shared his plans with Hongbin yet. He shouldn’t be worried. It’s not like Wonshik is exactly predictable.

Wonshik winks at him. “I’m taking you out to dinner.”  
  
Oh. Hongbin finds himself blushing. He knows that he never really gave Wonshik an answer to his confession, but he also hasn’t discouraged his interest. It’s just as well; he’s not sure that he wants to discourage it.  
  
It’s easy to let Wonshik lead him out of the lab. Wonshik is gentle and kind, and in spite of the nagging doubts at the back of Hongbin’s mind, this is the most comfortable he’s been with anyone since his wife died.  
  
Wonshik even manages to make him laugh, on the elevator waiting to reach the lobby. His jokes are kind of stupid, but he delivers them with such a straight face that Hongbin can’t help reacting.  
  
Dinner is nice, too. Wonshik takes him to an old-fashioned place where you sit on the floor by low tables and kindly women in dark aprons bring you dishes that are still sizzling hot from the stove. It’s cozy and warm, and Hongbin feels so relaxed that he thinks he might fall asleep right there.  
  
Wonshik orders a bottle of soju, pours some into a little glass and offers it to Hongbin.  
  
Hongbin waves a hand. He shouldn’t. He knows that he shouldn’t. “I don’t drink,” he says.  
  
“You sure?” Wonshik asks, quirking an eyebrow at him. He makes bad ideas sound good, somehow. It makes him dangerous, but Hongbin can’t find it in himself to be worried about that.  
  
He shakes his head. “Alcohol doesn’t mix well with the medication I’m on,” he lies. It’s easier than telling Wonshik the truth. He’s already told him all of his other truths (most of his other truths), but this one feels harder to admit than the others and he doesn’t know why. Of all the things that Wonshik was likely to judge him for, this should have been the least embarrassing.  
  
Wonshik nods in understanding, not even blinking at Hongbin’s falsehood. “Sorry, I didn’t know.”  
  
Hongbin waves it away. It’s not a big deal. He’s an adult; he can take care of himself. Wonshik offering him alcohol doesn’t mean that he has to drink it. He takes another sip of his water instead, fills himself with good food and lets himself laugh with Wonshik. It’s the happiest he’s been in a very long time and he doesn’t want it to end.  
  
“Take me home,” Hongbin says abruptly, just as their meal is ending.  
  
Wonshik’s head snaps up and he stares like Hongbin has just confessed to being half gorilla. “Sorry, I think the soju is making me hear things,” he says.  
  
“Take me home,” Hongbin repeats. “Please, I haven’t felt this way in….” He pauses, unwilling to even count the years that he’s been alone. “I want you.”  
  
Wonshik runs a rough hand through his hair and then returns to staring. “Hongbin, I…don’t get me wrong, I definitely want you. But are you sure you really wanna do this?”  
  
“I’m not the one who’s been drinking,” Hongbin points out. Wonshik hasn’t even finished the bottle. He’s hardly drunk. “I’m sure. God, I didn’t think that I could feel for anyone else, after she…but I like you, and this is probably a terrible decision, but I’d rather make a shit choice and regret it later than continue living like this.”  
  
“Fuck,” Wonshik sighs. He finally looks away from Hongbin, stares down at his own hands like they’ll tell him what to do. “I don’t do casual sex, Hongbin.”  
  
“Neither do I,” Hongbin says. He hasn’t touched anyone since she died. He wasn’t sure he’d ever want to.  
  
“If we do this…I can’t guarantee it’ll be a one-time thing,” Wonshik presses. He hasn’t looked up. Hongbin wants to see his eyes but Wonshik just keeps gazing at his own hands like they’re the most interesting thing in the universe. The way the light hits him casts most of his face in shadow at this angle and it’s hard to gauge his expression at all.  
  
Hongbin gives himself a minute to process Wonshik’s words. Can he live with that, with having Wonshik in his life more or less permanently? He’s already stuck with him until the job is done, at least. And it wasn’t too long ago that Hongbin wondered what it would be like to have Wonshik at his side all the time. They haven’t known each other for very long, and Hongbin’s still not one hundred percent sure of Wonshik’s character. But for the first time since he was twenty, Hongbin wants to take a leap of faith.  
  
“Good,” he says at last, reaching out to take Wonshik’s hand, “because I don’t plan to go anywhere.” It’s not like he has anywhere to go, anyway. The company has been his whole life for twelve years, and after it’s gone…he’s going to have to find something new.  
  
Wonshik shakes his head, and his smile when he looks up is crooked. “God, I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he says.  
  
Hongbin smiles back and hopes that it’s enough.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just finished this chapter yesterday. Currently I have no more written, but I swear I'll work on that. Also, I realized I probably should have bumped the rating a while ago, but I used the F word a lot of times in this chapter? So I feel like that deserves it even without the other stuff. Stay safe, kiddos.

  
It’s fucking weird walking into a convenience store knowing that they’re there to buy supplies so that they can have sex. It makes Hongbin hesitate for a moment, standing in the shop’s doorway and staring at the unassuming shelves of items for purchase. He’s letting all the smoggy air in, not letting the door close behind him.  
  
Wonshik grabs his wrist and drags him through the store. His skin is warm against Hongbin’s and the touch grounds him while also making him shiver. So many things about Wonshik are contradictory like that. Like the fact that Hongbin both doubts him and trusts him implicitly. Like the fact that he’s both funny and wickedly sexy.  
  
They’re in the condom aisle for less than thirty seconds, as Wonshik picks out a box and a bottle and ushers Hongbin away again. It is the most mortifying thirty seconds of Hongbin’s life.  
  
They go for the self-checkout, so there’s not even any interaction with a human being who might judge them. (Not that it’s very likely that there would be a human behind the counter. Most little convenience stores like this are staffed almost exclusively with bots.) It doesn’t make Hongbin feel any better.  
  
In and out in less than five minutes, Hongbin should feel relieved. But that weird buzzing electricity has started beneath his skin again and he’s getting dizzy instead.  
  
 _It’s okay,_ he tells himself. _I want this. I want him. It’s okay to want him._  
  
\---  
  
It is _really_ fucking weird, letting Wonshik into his apartment knowing that they’re about to have sex, Hongbin muses as he unlocks the door. He still isn’t entirely sure what he’s thinking, doing this. But he’s also just really fucking tired of all of this, of not feeling like he has any control over anything that happens to him anymore. This is a decision he can make for himself, so he’s going to do it.  
  
He wants Wonshik. For the first time in more than twelve years, Hongbin sincerely wants someone, and he knows that he’s only known Wonshik for what, like two weeks? And he knows that this is probably not the way to start a relationship, and that really their entire situation is fucked up.  
  
But Hongbin’s life is fucked up. It’s been fucked up since his wife died, and Wonshik makes him feel alive again, so for once he wants to say ‘fuck it’ and do something just because he wants it.  
  
Wonshik’s hands settle on his shoulders and Hongbin lets out a full body shudder. It’s tension and anticipation and relief all at once. “You okay?” Wonshik asks. “You’re shaking.”  
  
“I’m fine,” Hongbin replies. He is fine. He has more control over his mental faculties right now than he’s had in months, possibly years. He wants this.  
  
“Are you sure?” Wonshik asks again. “We don’t actually have to do this if you don’t want to.”  
  
Hongbin turns, cups his hands around Wonshik’s neck and leans their foreheads together. It ends up feeling more intimate than kissing him would have, and Hongbin shivers again at the mingling of their breaths. “I haven’t wanted anything this much in…maybe ever,” Hongbin says.  
  
“I doubt that’s true,” Wonshik replies, and the wry little smile on his face is all wrong.  
  
Hongbin takes a breath, feels the solidity of Wonshik’s chest against his, and asks, “Are you sure you want to do this? You don’t have to just because I asked you to.”  
  
Wonshik chuckles, and that’s the sound that Hongbin wanted, the emotion that Hongbin wanted to hear.  “Are you kidding? This is a fucking dream come true. I’ve wanted this since I first saw you.”  
  
“But you don’t do casual sex,” Hongbin reminds him.  
  
“No, I don’t.” Wonshik rubs their noses together, and it should be cute and silly, but instead it makes Hongbin’s breath come faster. “But for you…for you I’m willing to take what I can get.”  
  
That’s a lot of trust that Wonshik is putting in him. If Hongbin wanted to, he could take this one night and then walk away, and probably take Wonshik’s heart with him. Wonshik is giving him permission to essentially _break_ him, and Hongbin is terrified at the idea. But he also knows that he would never do that. Hongbin knows what it’s like to lose someone that you love, and he can’t imagine the kind of pain it would cause, knowing that that person walked away of their own accord.  
  
“I’m not going anywhere,” he promises Wonshik. He doesn’t know how true it is, but he’s determined anyway. What does he have to lose, anymore? He doesn’t know if he’ll ever really love Wonshik, but what’s the harm in dedicating himself to him anyway?  
  
“I’m a selfish bastard, aren’t I?” Wonshik says. His hands have traveled, one to Hongbin’s hair and the other to the small of his back, holding him close. “You don’t feel the same as I do, but I’m forcing you to make all these promises.”  
  
Hongbin shakes his head, rocking their foreheads together. “If anything, it’s me. I’m the idiot who’s promising stuff just so you’ll sleep with me.”  
  
“I already said I’d take what I can get,” Wonshik reminds him, and his fingers slide along the side of Hongbin’s head so he can stroke over the shell of his ear. It makes Hongbin shiver hard, and he does it again, slower than before.  
  
Hongbin presses closer, so their lips brush as he speaks. “Then take me to bed,” he begs.  
  
“As you wish,” Wonshik replies, and then finally he kisses Hongbin.  
  
It’s hot and filthy and everything Hongbin wanted. Wonshik’s lips are slightly rough but they’re slick and his tongue traces over Hongbin’s teeth like he’s trying to learn every inch of him. Every touch sends another thrill of heat through Hongbin’s blood until he feels like he’s on fire on the inside.  
  
Plastic crinkles as Wonshik’s hand shifts on Hongbin’s back: the shopping bag he’s still carrying. It reminds Hongbin why they’re here and he stumbles backwards, leading Wonshik to his bedroom.  
  
Hongbin loses his shirt somewhere between the doorway and his bed, and he’s not sure whether it was him or Wonshik who removed it. It doesn’t matter, in the end, because Wonshik’s hands hot on his skin and the reverent way he looks at Hongbin have Hongbin’s breath coming faster.  
  
They bounce as they land on the bed, and their teeth clack together with the movement and it should be horrible. It _is_ horrible, somewhere in the back of his mind where Hongbin is overanalyzing everything that’s happening. The part of him that always feels stupid and clumsy and useless is fighting its way toward the surface, but Hongbin shoves it down with a vengeance and kisses his way down Wonshik’s jaw.  
  
Wonshik’s hips drop down onto Hongbin’s and he starts a slow, sexy grind. His hands are still exploring, running over the dips and curves of Hongbin’s chest and the flat plane of his stomach. It’s awfully unfair that Wonshik still has his shirt on. Hongbin has seen hints of the muscles he’s hiding under that sweater and he would like the full experience.  
  
Wonshik has been silent this whole time save for his labored breathing, but suddenly his head dips next to Hongbin’s and his lips are on Hongbin’s ear and he whispers, “Do you know how badly I’ve wanted this? Fuck, Hongbin, I try not to fantasize about my coworkers, but you were just too tempting, you know? I don’t know how many times I’ve rubbed one off thinking about this jawline,” he runs his tongue over the offending body part, “or these shoulders,” and here his head drops again, and he bites into the meaty part of Hongbin’s shoulder and all at once Hongbin’s vision goes white.  
  
 _“You’ll regret this.”_  
  
Hongbin is vaguely aware that he’s shaking, violently enough that it could be mistaken for a seizure. He tries to calm down, to make himself breathe, to get his eyes to focus, but he can’t see anything—not even _her_.  
  
 _“You don’t love him. You don’t even truly trust him. And you might, given time, but if you do this now you’ll tear yourself apart with remorse.”_  
  
‘Stop it,’ Hongbin wants to say. He thinks his lips might form the words but he doesn’t have enough air to actually say them. The impenetrable whiteness around him is worse than when black creeps in around the edges of his vision, worse than feeling trapped. There’s nothing, and no one, and he is very afraid.  
  
 _“You can’t make it better by doing this. He’s not the answer to all your problems.”_ She finally appears beside him, a vision in that same white dress. Her dark hair cascades down her shoulders in soft waves and she’s wearing the gentlest smile Hongbin has ever seen. He misses her.  
  
“Why do you keep doing this?” he asks. Maybe he asks. He’s still not sure he’s taking in enough breath to speak.  
  
She reaches for him, but her hand stops just before making contact. Her smile never wavers. _“Because you still need me, Hongbin. Because you can’t let me go.”_  
  
He tries to shake his head. If he thought there was any chance he could touch her he would try it, but he knows there’s no point. He’s known all along that this woman isn’t real. “You’re dead,” he tells her.  
  
It makes her laugh. She laughs and laughs, and at first watching her soundless laughter is comforting, but the longer it goes on the more unnatural and disturbing and robotic it sounds. When she finally stops and looks down at him again, her eyes are glowing blue. _“That didn’t stop you before,”_ she reminds him.  
  
“HONGBIN!”  
  
Hongbin jolts suddenly back into reality. He’s still in his bedroom, laying shirtless on his bed with Wonshik hovering over him. But now Wonshik’s face is all scrunched up, and his eyes are filled with tears, and he’s panting like he just spent forty years outside in the smog. Every breath sounds ragged in his throat and he makes a distressed noise as Hongbin shifts beneath him.  
  
“Hey,” Hongbin manages to say. His tongue feels sluggish and too big in his mouth. To distract himself from how strange he feels, he reaches up to wipe the tear tracks from Wonshik’s cheeks.  
  
Wonshik sags immediately, his whole body loose with relief and the exhaustion of worry. His hands move to cradle Hongbin’s head and his fingers stroke through short hair and he takes a slow, hiccupping breath. “God, I thought you were dying.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” is the only thing that Hongbin can think to say. It feels a bit silly, lying here holding each other’s faces, but he thinks it might be the only thing grounding him at the moment and he can’t bring himself to let go.  
  
“Don’t be,” Wonshik insists at once. His eyes are very dark and his skin is very warm against Hongbin’s and he’s so handsome Hongbin can hardly believe he’s real. “Fuck, I knew this was a bad idea. I’m the one who’s sorry.”  
  
“It’s not your fault,” Hongbin says. Wonshik’s sweater is brushing against him in places and it’s so soft Hongbin wants to be wrapped up in it, possibly forever. “It was my idea. I asked for this.”  
  
“You asked me to sleep with you, you didn’t ask for,” Wonshik lifts a hand to wave vaguely in the air, “whatever that was.”  
  
Hongbin nods. He murmurs, “Youngji.”  
  
Wonshik averts his eyes and heaves a sigh. After a moment he says, “You should call Hakyeon.”  
  
Hongbin knows he’s right. He’s also not in the mood for a lecture at the moment. “In the morning,” he promises. “Right now I just….” He’s exhausted, he realizes. Today was too much, too fast, too overwhelming. He thought he was doing better but really he’s been pretty good at avoiding overdoing it. He can’t handle another thing right now. “I want to sleep.”  
  
“Alright,” Wonshik says, nodding. He climbs off of Hongbin, clearly planning to leave.  
  
Hongbin catches his sleeve and asks in a much tinier voice then he intended, “Stay with me?”  
  
Wonshik’s eyebrows go up, and he asks, “Are you sure about that?”  
  
“Not for…just to sleep,” Hongbin insists. “Just…I don’t want to be alone right now.” He’s been alone for so long. He misses sleeping next to another person. “Hold me?”  
  
Wonshik agrees too easily, sliding back into the bed next to Hongbin and pulling him into his arms. They’re about the same size, but curled against Wonshik’s chest Hongbin feels small and warm and protected.  
  
He asks too much of this man. They barely know each other. But something about Wonshik makes Hongbin want more than he deserves, more than he should ask for. He knows that Wonshik isn’t the answer to all of his problems. He didn’t need his dead wife to come back to tell him that. But it would be awfully nice, Hongbin thinks, to have the support (and maybe someday the love) of such a generous, caring man.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. Super short chapter here, sorry about that. You may have noticed that it's been two weeks since the last update instead of just one. That's going to be a regular thing, at least for a while, because my health is shitty and I'm struggling to focus on anything and I'm trying to find extra income at the moment. So yeah, um, I'll try to post other things in between updates when I can, but this is still my main focus, and I promise I'm trying.

_He hasn’t been sober in months. Alcohol doesn’t make the pain go away but it dulls it enough that Hongbin can pretend that he doesn’t feel it. Hakyeon keeps telling him that he should stop drinking. He says it’ll just make everything worse. He’s definitely right, but Hongbin can’t stop. He thinks that if he does, he might just collapse under the weight of the things he’s done._  
  
 _The only part of the house that’s not completely inundated with memories of her is his workshop, so he spends most of his time in there. It doesn’t especially help, just like everything else he’s tried to forget her._  
  
 _He has too much time on his hands. It’s not a conscious decision he makes, for sure, when he starts digging in bins of parts. He doesn’t know what he’s planning to do at first, or maybe he just pushes it to the back of his mind so that he doesn’t have to face the gravity of his choices. He’s done so many taboo things already, what’s one more?_  
  
 _It takes shape slowly, a torso and then legs, a body standing on its own. He makes the arms then, and adds the head last._  
  
 _It takes him months, and he doesn’t once admit to himself what it is he’s doing. It’s easier that way, easier to justify. He’s just building a bot. He’s_ just _doing his job…until he starts structuring the face, adding skin and hair, programming in memories and personality traits._  
  
 _She’s so beautiful._  
  
 _And Hongbin is so broken._  
  
\---  
  
He wakes to the smell of fresh coffee, of cooking food. There are the sounds of someone moving around outside the bedroom, and Hongbin’s first thought is that it’s Leo—Taekwoon—back to take care of him because Hongbin can’t take care of himself.  
  
But that’s wrong, and it takes him only another moment to remember last night’s disaster of a date, and Wonshik’s warm, strong arms around him.  
  
He stumbles out of bed—the blankets are tangled around him and sticking to the fabric of his slacks—and goes for the door.  
  
Wonshik is still in his sweater, his nice slacks wrinkled beyond help. The careful spikes of his hair are flattened against his head and there are still pillow creases on his face and Hongbin thinks he’s handsome even so. It’s endearing, watching Wonshik putter around his kitchen like he belongs there, wearing yesterday’s clothes and looking so adorably ruffled.  
  
Hongbin wants him. But he remembers how well that went last night and stays still.  
  
“Coffee?” Wonshik asks. He doesn’t look up from the stove where he’s frying eggs. He must have heard Hongbin come in.  
  
Hongbin realizes, belatedly, that he’s still not wearing a shirt. But he reasons that Wonshik already saw it all, so it doesn’t really matter. He says, “I’ve got it,” and skirts past Wonshik to pull open a cupboard.  
  
Wonshik casually bumps hips with him. Hongbin’s kitchen is tiny, so they have no choice but to stand close together in order to fit. Wonshik glances over at him through the side of his glasses. They suit him, Hongbin thinks. Wonshik’s image is normally sexy and serious and tough, but the glasses give him a softer edge and make him less intimidating. Not that Hongbin is really intimidated by him anymore.  
  
Hongbin pours two cups of coffee without asking. If Wonshik doesn’t want it then he’ll just drink it himself.  
  
“Do you have sugar?” Wonshik asks, finally turning off the stove and expertly sliding a rolled egg off the pan onto a plate.  
  
Hongbin blinks at him. He looks back down at the two cups of black coffee that he’s just poured. “Oh,” he says at last. “Right, yeah, somewhere.”  
  
Wonshik chuckles and picks up a knife to cut the egg into even slices. “Sugar would be great.”  
  
It takes a little bit of searching, but Hongbin does eventually find the sugar. It’s not even that old—he must have either bought it the other day when he went shopping or sometime shortly before the most recent stint of not coming home.  
  
They set up breakfast on the coffee table, for lack of a better place. Hongbin doesn’t have a proper table because of the size of the apartment and the fact that he’s hardly ever here. He usually just eats on the couch anyway, or at his desk in the bedroom.  
  
Wonshik sinks down to the floor without a sign of discomfort. All of his movements are so sure, and Hongbin envies him that confidence. Hongbin always questions every decision he makes, every single thing he ever does. He can’t help it, after all the mistakes he’s made. He’s not sure anymore whether he’s even capable of doing anything right.  
  
The food Wonshik made is good, and Wonshik’s smiling face across the table from him makes it go down easier. It feels…normal, being here with Wonshik like this. It’s so strange, how easily Wonshik can assimilate himself into Hongbin’s space, into his life.  
  
Hongbin wants Wonshik to be his answer. He knows he isn’t, that the only person who can solve his problems is him, but he can’t help wishing that being with Wonshik would make all his issues go away.  
  
Wonshik can’t do that. He’s not god. He’s not even a superhero. He’s just human, just like Hongbin. Wonshik can do a lot of things, can be at his side and support him and help him with things, but he can’t magic away the things that Hongbin has done.  
  
He can’t magic away the fact that they’re both cyborgs, the most taboo creatures in the entire universe.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter doesn't seem like it builds the plot much but bear with me? I promise it's getting us somewhere important. In other news, NaNoWriMo starts in five days and I'm gonna be fighting my way through that as well as working on updates for this. But I think I have endgame in mind? So I'll keep chugging along.

Hongbin doesn’t know where they’re going.  
  
 _“There’s something I need to show you,”_ Wonshik had said after breakfast. And when Hongbin had asked what that was, Wonshik had just winked and said, _“Trust me.”_  
  
So here he is, following Wonshik onto the monorail like an obedient child and hoping that Wonshik isn’t about to do something terrible to him.  
  
He trusts Wonshik not to hurt him. But Wonshik doesn’t know Hongbin’s limits the way Hongbin does. He doesn’t know the half of what Hongbin deals with on a daily basis. He can’t completely understand.  
  
So Hongbin has no idea where they’re going, and he ignores the calm female voice in his earpiece as they board the train, and he just tries to breathe.  
  
There aren’t that many other people on the train with them. It’s a Saturday and most people attempt to _leave_ the city on the weekend rather than venture deeper into it, but that appears to be where they’re going. The train they’re on will take them straight through the city center, to the most crowded, suffocating places in Seoul.  
  
Hongbin has no clue what Wonshik is thinking.  
  
They get off at one of the platforms in the commercial district, suspended several hundred feet in the air. From here, skywalks lead to most of the high-rise shopping centers and restaurants that line the empty streets. Very few people are dumb enough to try to use the roads in this area; no one wants to die that quick a death.  
  
Wonshik takes his hand and leads him through the thrumming crowd. There are people everywhere, and Hongbin unthinkingly shrinks closer into Wonshik’s space. Every time a stranger brushes against him Hongbin feels himself tense a little more. This is the commercial district’s busiest day.  
  
“I’ve got you,” Wonshik promises him, tugging Hongbin along. Their fingers are tangled tightly together and Hongbin wishes that it was able to make his breath come easier. He focuses on inhaling and exhaling steadily and trusts that Wonshik knows where they’re going.  
  
They cross over three different skywalks, and every time they reach the end of one Hongbin thinks they’re going to enter the building it connects to, but instead Wonshik will turn and lead him down another one instead.  
  
“Where are we going?” Hongbin finally asks, as they’re approaching the doors at the end of the third corridor.  
  
Wonshik huffs a little laugh at him and nods at the sign above the door. “You’ll see,” he promises.  
  
They finally enter a forty-story shopping center and the crowd thins out some as there’s more room for people to move. Hongbin breathes a sigh of relief and takes in the space. The ceilings are high, and everywhere there are brightly colored advertisements with the latest celebrities endorsing things like hand cream and chicken restaurants and clothing brands.  
  
Wonshik tugs at his hand again and says, “This way. They’re waiting for us.”  
  
“Who’s waiting?” Hongbin tries to ask, but they’re already moving again, pushing through the throngs of people to get to a food court area.  
  
Wonshik winds through the sea of tables, dodging people without even looking at them, and Hongbin can do nothing but follow. It doesn’t take him long to figure out who they’re meeting, though. Ahead of them, Hyuk sits at a table with another young man, laughing brightly. At this distance Hongbin can’t hear him, but he can see the way Hyuk’s whole face lights up, and the way he tips his head back in mirth. Maybe Hongbin didn’t completely ruin him.  
  
“There you are,” Wonshik says as they reach the table. “We’re not late, are we?”  
  
The man with Hyuk shakes his head and waves at their tableful of mostly untouched food. “We just got here,” he insists. His hair is an odd gradient—white-blond at the top, fading down into rich purple and then black at the tips. Hongbin wonders how much that look cost him.  
  
Wonshik slaps the man’s back in a friendly manner and pulls out a chair, gesturing at Hongbin to sit down.  
  
Lacking other options, Hongbin does so.  
  
“So,” Wonshik says, taking the final chair for himself, caddy-corner to Hongbin, “I guess introductions might be good? Obviously, you already know Hyuk,” he says to Hongbin. “But this is Taemin. He’s a friend of mine.”  
  
The man with the strange hair snorts at this. “Understatement,” he mutters. “I’m the best friend you’ve ever had.”  
  
“No you’re not,” Wonshik argues. “You’re an asshole and I don’t know why I’m friends with you.” They both laugh, and then Wonshik continues, “Anyway, Taemin, this is Hongbin, the engineer I was telling you about.”  
  
Taemin’s eyebrows go up. It doesn’t seem like he’s surprised so much as feigning it to annoy Wonshik. “What? _This_ is the _absolutely dreamy, Taemin, I think I’m in love_ engineer you won’t stop talking about?” His voice goes unnaturally deep in a mimicry of Wonshik’s and his lips draw up in a smirk.  
  
Wonshik scowls, but he’s blushing to the tips of his ears. “Shut up,” he snaps.  
  
Taemin waves a dismissive hand, leaning back in his chair and picking up his drink. He gestures with it as he says, “Well, it’s good to finally put a face to the name. Nice to meet you, Hongbin.” He winks at Hongbin as he says this last, and Hongbin suddenly finds the tabletop incredibly interesting. He thinks he probably has a blush to match Wonshik’s.  
  
He repeats Taemin’s words back to him, wondering why Wonshik brought him here to meet this man and why Hyuk is with him.  
  
“So!” Wonshik says loudly, his hands dropping just short of too hard onto the tabletop. “The reason we’re here is actually, um,” here he glances at Hongbin, squinting oddly, “because Taemin is my buyer.”  
  
Hongbin takes a few seconds to take Taemin in, and he has to admit that he looks the part. Besides his obviously expensive hairstyle, he wears clothes that scream wealth—a tailored button-front shirt, tight black slacks, a twisting silver bracelet around his wrist, several rings on each hand, and earrings in both ears that glitter with what must be diamonds. And maybe the clothes aren’t the most ostentatious Hongbin’s ever seen, but something about the way he holds himself makes them seem even more expensive.  
  
“So, what,” Hongbin asks, finally looking around the table at Hyuk and Wonshik as well, “this is a business meeting?”  
  
Wonshik lets out a snort and says, “After a fashion, I guess. Mostly I wanted you to meet him so you would have a better understanding of our operation.” He glances at Hongbin from under his eyelashes and admits, “Hakyeon may have mentioned that you had some concerns.”  
  
It figures that Hakyeon would say something to Wonshik. He’s never been anything but blunt. “That rat,” Hongbin says anyway, in the vague hope that it will make Wonshik laugh.  
  
It does, and Taemin and Hyuk with him. It’s the most accomplished Hongbin has felt in a while, that he’s brought joy to these three men. It’s sad, he realizes, that this is what his life has come to, that something so trivial is such a grand accomplishment.  
  
When they’ve calmed, Taemin waves at the table, drink still in hand. “You two should help us eat all this,” he says, “because there’s no way Hyuk and I are going to manage it on our own.”  
  
Wonshik replies, “You should have brought Jongin, then,” but he reaches for a box of fries anyway.  
  
It really hasn’t been that long since they had breakfast, and Hongbin is light-headed and aching from the stress of being in such a crowd. He doesn’t want to be rude, but he’s also very out of his element right now and doesn’t even want to think about food.  
  
As the other two start eating, Taemin turns to Hongbin again. There’s a strange light in his eyes, and he leans closer to Hongbin, his eyebrows drawing down until they cast sharp shadows across his face. For a few moments Hongbin isn’t sure that Taemin plans to say anything at all, but finally he whispers, “Wonshik took a risk bringing you into this. I hope you know that.”  
  
Hongbin huffs out a tight breath. “Even knowing me is a risk,” he replies, too honest.  
  
Taemin isn’t fazed, though. He nods knowingly. “Everyone has secrets,” he says. His gaze is still sharp and Hongbin doesn’t know what to think about him. This man is apparently Wonshik’s close friend, and Wonshik trusts him enough to work with him. But Hongbin knows nothing about Taemin, very little even about his role in whatever the fuck it is that they’re doing.  
  
Hongbin barely knows anything about his own role in this.  
  
Taemin sits back, finally taking a sip from the glass he’s been holding all this time. His face is still as unreadable as before, but without his close scrutiny Hongbin feels he can breathe a little easier.  
  
For lack of anything else to do, Hongbin picks up the nearest fast-food box and opens it. It’s some sort of sandwich, smelling of grease and artificially-enriched vegetables. He doesn’t want it, but he can see Wonshik smiling at him and knows that it’ll make him happy if Hongbin eats it. It hasn’t taken Hongbin very long to realize that Wonshik likes to feed him.  
  
It isn’t the worst outing Hongbin has ever experienced, sitting there eating junk food while the others laugh and joke about jarringly mundane, everyday things. He feels like he should be uncomfortable with three men he barely knows, but he’s so tired. He’s tired of being afraid of everything. He’s just too exhausted to have his usual reactions to people.  
  
It’s a nice change. He knows it won’t last, but he embraces it anyway. For a second, he gets a glimpse of the way normal people feel all the time.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been working pretty intensely on NaNoWriMo this month, so sorry if this chapter is weird. I just finished it yesterday and only did one read-through so please ignore any typos. On the plus side, the action really gets started next chapter. I think we might be nearing the end.

“So what did you think?” Wonshik asks him later. They’re on the train home, and Hongbin has sunk down in his seat so he can rest his head on Wonshik’s shoulder. Wonshik didn’t say a word when he did it, just shifted so that they’d both be more comfortable and let Hongbin stay where he was.  
  
“What did I think about what?” Hongbin mumbles. He’s so drained that he’s having a hard time making sense of words.  
  
Wonshik nudges him a little with his elbow. “About Taemin.”  
  
“What does it matter what I think of him?”  
  
There’s silence for so long that Hongbin lifts his head to examine Wonshik’s face. His forehead is scrunched up and he’s frowning so hard that Hongbin worries he’s going to strain something.  
  
“What?” Hongbin demands. “Seriously, why does it matter?”  
  
“You have no idea what you do to me, do you?” Wonshik says. His voice is deeper than Hongbin has ever heard it. “Fuck, I barely know you and you’re already everything to me.”  
  
That is a terrifying concept. Hongbin never wanted to have that much responsibility for someone else again. After his wife…he’d promised himself that he wouldn’t do it again. He didn’t want that kind of pain, for himself or for anyone else. “Don’t,” he says. “Don’t put me on some sort of fucking pedestal. Don’t make me the most important thing in your life. I’m not fucking worth it.”  
  
“Too late,” Wonshik says, shaking his head and laughing. The sound is hollow and disturbing. “I thought…fuck, I thought that I could be objective about this whole fucking thing. But the mission doesn’t mean so much to me anymore. Every time I try to plan shit, I just end up thinking about how to make sure you come out of it okay. I’m so fucking lost on you, Hongbin.”  
  
Hongbin can’t fucking do this, not again. “Then I think,” he says, and it comes out more choked than he expected it to. He clears his throat and tries again. “I think we should stop. The mission has to be our priority.”  
  
“I know,” Wonshik replies, but the quiet strain in his voice says that he wishes he didn’t. He takes a couple of deep breaths, and Hongbin watches his firm chest expand and contract but doesn’t say anything.  
  
“Alright,” Wonshik says at last. “You’re right. From now on, we’ll be strictly professional. For the sake of the mission.”  
  
Hongbin nods firmly, and settles stiffly back into his seat. The rest of the train ride is the most awkward twenty minutes of Hongbin’s unnaturally long life.  
  
\---  
  
What follows is mostly boredom. On Monday Hongbin goes to work and he pretends that he doesn’t keep turning and expecting Wonshik to be right there. He designs bots, and waits, and then eventually starts building them.  
  
He tells himself to remember every name—Gongchan, Sandeul, CNU. Jin and Suga and one man who only identifies himself with the letter V. Hongbin commits every name and face to memory. He doesn’t know if it’s a mental list of people he’s saved or people whose lives he’s ruined, but either way it happens and they’re cyborgs and he gives them to his boss and then sends a very professional message to Wonshik informing him that there’s another one.  
  
Every time, Hongbin hopes that Wonshik will send something back, anything, just to let Hongbin know that he’s not angry, that he doesn’t hate him. But every single time, Wonshik’s response just says, _‘Thanks.’_  
  
Hongbin’s new design is a tiny little thing. He hopes that the person who inevitably ends up in this body wasn’t a giant before. He always worries about that—what if they’re different, what if their loved ones don’t recognize them, what if they can’t function or don’t feel like themselves anymore? He hates this.  
  
He doesn’t know why he chooses pink hair, but it feels like a good idea at the time. Pink hair and round cheeks and apparently a squishy little eye-smile that makes Hongbin melt a little while also feeling like the worst person on the planet.  
  
And this kid—he doesn’t even know if he’s a kid—looks up at Hongbin and asks, “So is this going to be a permanent thing, or…?”  
  
Hongbin for the life of him cannot even comprehend what the kid is asking, let alone how to answer that question. Most of them come to him with some idea of why they’re there, what they are. This kid just stares at him with big doe eyes and demands answers like he’s some kind of prophet.  
  
“I don’t cook or clean, and if you try any butt stuff I will one hundred percent kick your ass,” the kid announces, stalking away from the platform to examine the rest of the lab. “And I expect clothes. Comfy sweaters are my preference, but anything sufficiently covering is fine. And I’ll need a music studio.”  
  
Hongbin sighs, puts his face in his hands, and laments, “I did not sign up for this.”  
  
“You thought I was going to be a docile little pet? As if. I have as many human rights as you do,” the kid says. He’s got one of the handheld welders balanced delicately in his fingers. That thing doesn’t look like much, but used correctly it could kill (or at least severely maim) a man.  
  
“Look,” Hongbin says, sitting up to stare the kid in the eyes with as much conviction as he can. “I’m just here to get you away from the company. After that, my work is done.”  
  
The kid shrugs, and the tool gets put down. “All you had to do was say so,” he says. “You’re not very good at introductions, are you?”  
  
Hongbin can’t help another sigh, but he explains the procedures—he’s very familiar with them by now—and then he sends the kid on his way. Some of them he’s made in batches, more than one cyborg at a time before he calls his boss, but that gets messy fast and he doesn’t want to deal with it right now. He’s in the green again with the company and his job is no longer at risk but that doesn’t mean he’s off the hook. His boss is always going to dislike him, no matter how many good ‘bots’ he makes.  
  
When he’s alone in his lab again, Hongbin leans back in his computer chair and contemplates how…empty it is. Just a few months ago He preferred it this way, silent and motionless except for him and the machines. But after Taekwoon and Wonshik and the string of people who have waltzed in and out of this place it doesn’t feel sacred the way it used to.  
  
This lab has never been a sanctuary, not really, but it was an escape at one time. It was a place that didn’t have memories of his wife soaked into the very walls. It wasn’t the home workshop where he had made so many bad choices that he couldn’t stand to even look at his equipment anymore.  
  
It’s been three months since Hongbin last saw Wonshik face to face, and he misses him more than he expected to.  
  
It’s easy to consider falling right back into the bad habits that he fought himself out of for so long. But he threw out the alcohol under his cot and the only pills here are the ones for his head. He knows better.  
  
He ended things with Wonshik. It was him, and he has to take the blame for it. He stopped it before things could get worse, before Wonshik could start to rely on him too much.  
  
Hongbin isn’t worth that level of dedication. He’s not safe to be around. He just wants all of this to end, so he can go live out the rest of his pointless life in peace, knowing at least that he’s not hurting anyone anymore.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm still working on NaNoWriMo and this has been kind of a backburner project. This chapter isn't super long but the plot starts to move here. Thanks for your patience.

Hakyeon calls him just after Hongbin gets home that night. Hongbin expects the usual, ‘Yah, why haven’t you come in for a check-up yet’ lecture, but instead the first thing Hakyeon asks is, “Have you heard from Wonshik lately?”  
  
Feeling vaguely nauseated, Hongbin flops down on his sofa, ignoring the bad spring that jabs into his thigh. “Not in a while,” he admits. “Why?”  
  
“Neither have we,” Hakyeon says, with a deep sigh. “I was hoping he’d told you what he was up to. It’s weird for him to go this long without bringing anyone in.”  
  
“Wait,” Hongbin says, sitting up suddenly. “How long has it been since he’s brought you a new patient?”  
  
Hakyeon is quiet from the other end, but Hongbin can hear distant murmuring and wonders if Taekwoon is speaking to him. “At least two weeks,” Hakyeon says at last, “maybe longer. Taekwoon is looking through the patient records.”  
  
That will take a while, Hongbin knows, as all of Hakyeon’s records are on real paper so that they can’t be hacked. He keeps them locked away in his clinic, in cupboards secured by fingerprint scanners. In the meantime, Hongbin thinks back to the past couple of weeks. He’s sent off at least two bots, possibly three. He’d have to look back through his computer, compare that to when Hakyeon had his last appointment.  
  
“I’m worried,” Hakyeon admits. “Have you heard anything at all? It’s not like him to just drop off the map. But if he’s been compromised….” He doesn’t have to finish the sentence. If the company found out who Wonshik was, then they’re all supremely fucked. It’s just a matter of time until the entire operation is dug up, and all of them with it.  
  
“He messaged me back today,” Hongbin says, “when I sent off my latest…project. We didn’t exactly talk, but he was definitely alive and had access to his accounts.”  
  
Hakyeon’s sigh is loud, and Hongbin can imagine his shoulders deflating with relief. “That’s good,” he says. It’s not ideal. If Wonshik hasn’t been compromised, then they still don’t know why he’s cut them off. “I’ll try calling him again tonight. Maybe he’s just been busy. We’re reaching endgame, aren’t we?”  
  
Hongbin honestly has no idea, but he hopes to god it’s true. He’s been doing this for three months and he can’t even bear to look at himself in the mirror anymore. “I assume so,” he agrees anyway, the words feeling rote and dull in his mouth. “Let me know what he says, okay?”  
  
“Absolutely,” Hakyeon replies. “I’ll call you back when we know something.”  
  
They hang up, and Hongbin sags back into the couch. It’s been too fucking long since he felt relieved, since he felt clean. He thinks about doing this for an indeterminable amount of time and wonders if they would all hate him for quitting in the middle. He doesn’t care that the company hasn’t been stopped; he just doesn’t want to continue hurting people.  
  
If he felt like he could, he would call Wonshik and demand to know what the hell is going on. All of this feels sketchy as shit and Hongbin doesn’t want his own lack of caution to be the reason that a bunch of people get hurt.  
  
He doesn’t want any of this to be happening. Not for the first time, he thinks that it would have been better if he’d just followed his wife into death. At least then neither of them would be alone.  
  
\---  
  
Hongbin goes to work the next day even though it’s the last thing he wants to do. At least he has a few days before he has to think about making another bot. He doesn’t have to think about designing a face and knowing that that’s a person that he’s making. He doesn’t want to.  
  
Basically, everything sucks and he wonders if anyone would even notice if he didn’t come to work. Probably not, but even at home he’d just be miserable wandering around and pretending that he’s not wondering what the hell Wonshik is up to.  
  
Maybe it was a bad idea to stop communicating with Wonshik. Maybe he just doesn’t trust Hongbin anymore, and doesn’t feel like he can share his plans. Maybe he just can’t bear to look at Hongbin. Who fucking knows.  
  
He doesn’t. He’s not sure he wants to.  
  
When he gets to his lab, the lights are on. He’s not actually sure that he turned them off last night, so he doesn’t think much of it.  
  
That is, until someone walks out of the side room and nearly gives him a heart attack. He jumps about a foot in the air and puts a hand over his chest. “Wonshik, fuck! What the hell are you doing?” he snaps.  
  
Wonshik stands there in a full, charcoal-gray suit with a blue dress shirt and a black tie. He looks sheepish, scratching at the back of his head. His hair is longer, and he’s dyed it blond. It looks good with his honey-colored skin, offsets his dark eyes. “I needed to talk to you,” he admits.  
  
“You couldn’t have come when I was _here_?” Hongbin asks, surprised anger mostly gone. Wonshik looks _good._ It’s been so long that Hongbin had almost forgotten how attractive he is. It’s supremely unfair. He crosses his arms in self-defense, attempting to hide his wrinkled white button-front. He didn’t think he’d see anyone at all today, let alone Wonshik.  
  
“I hoped that you would be here when I came in, actually,” Wonshik admits, shaking his head. “I guess you don’t work such long hours anymore, huh?”  
  
Hongbin huffs and shuffles over to slump down into his desk chair. “I try not to be here too much. That way I don’t have to—“ He cuts himself off, but it’s obvious what he was going to say.  
  
Wonshik nods knowingly and strides over to him. Apparently without thinking, he perches on that same little piece of desk that he always uses when he’s here. He’s very close to Hongbin. “I get it,” Wonshik says, “and I promise that we’re almost done. There’s just been…a lot more hoops to jump through than I thought there would be.”  
  
Hongbin frowns at his blank computer monitor so that he doesn’t have to look at Wonshik. “What kind of hoops?” he asks.  
  
“The kind that will protect the engineers and all of the cyborgs that they’ve made while this has been happening,” Wonshik murmurs.  
  
Hongbin glances up to see Wonshik watching him meaningfully. “You said that you were going to stop worrying about me. I’m not the most important thing here.”  
  
“You’re right,” Wonshik replies. “But you’re not the only one I’m protecting. Taekwoon and Ken and Hyuk and all of the others you’ve made, I’m looking out for them too. And as far as I can tell, none of the engineers knew about this. They don’t deserve to go down with the ship.”  
  
Hongbin tells himself to breathe in spite of the intense look in Wonshik’s eyes. “So you’re planning to go to law enforcement about this?” he has to ask.  
  
“Not exactly,” Wonshik says. “But we’re getting the company taken down, so don’t worry about it too much, okay?”  
  
Hongbin nods, because he’s not sure what else he can do.  
  
Wonshik stands then, and says, “Well, I just came to let you know that we’re close, so I should…probably go.”  
  
Hongbin wants to ask him to stay. He wants to sit here and look at Wonshik for another minute. He wants Wonshik to hold him and to tell him how much he loves him and to promise never to scare him like this again. But that’ll only hurt both of them, so he just says, “Thanks for keeping me updated.”  
  
Wonshik nods at him and then turns and strides out the door.  
  
It’s only after he’s gone that Hongbin realizes that he’s not sure how Wonshik even got into his lab. His IT work code shouldn’t be valid after such a long time, and Wonshik isn’t high enough on the food chain to have override codes.  
  
It’s just one more thing that makes Hongbin worry, and exactly not what he needed. He takes a deep breath and as he lets it out he sinks down further in his chair until his head is propped on the low back of it and he’s staring at the ceiling.  
  
He doesn’t want to do this anymore.

 

 


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't finish this until today and I have only myself to blame. I may have spent like three days straight mostly just playing Minecraft. There's a big reveal in this chapter and I'm super excited about it. (Ha, you thought we were out of big reveals, didn't you?)

 

The squat brick building looks the same as always when Hongbin walks up. It’s always weird, to see this little three-story surrounded by skyscrapers. Hongbin isn’t sure who owns it or how they’ve managed to hold the place this long, but he’s impressed.  
  
He tugs the door open and goes inside, up the stairs and through into 242 like he belongs there. He does, after a fashion.  
  
Taekwoon is sitting behind the little-used receptionist’s desk, and he looks up when Hongbin enters. “You’re here,” he mumbles, and then stands to rap his knuckles on the door to the exam room.  
  
Hongbin stands there, suddenly uncertain what to do. He’s not here for an appointment, for once, though he figures that Hakyeon will probably take him aside for an examination at some point anyway. But today, he’s come for something more important.  
  
The exam room door opens and Hakyeon steps out, cradling a stack of folders in one arm. His face is unusually grim and it makes Hongbin’s stomach drop. Hongbin was really hoping for good news when they called him here to talk about the mission, but he’s suspecting that it’s the opposite.  
  
“It’s not good,” Hakyeon says. He drops the folders onto the receptionist’s desk with a loud bang. “These are all the patients that Wonshik has brought to me in the past year. There’s less than fifty of them here, and of those,” he picks up the top folder, flips it open, and waves the single sheet of paper inside it in Hongbin’s direction, “less than a dozen have had repeat appointments.”  
  
Hongbin can’t do anything but stare. That little stack of folders is all Hakyeon knows? If most of them have the same amount of information in them that the first one did, then they know basically nothing—about the operation, the cyborgs, about Wonshik himself.  
  
“I believed that Wonshik was doing what he thought was best,” Hakyeon murmurs. He’s staring at that single sheet of paper that he’d been waving, like maybe it has answers for him. “But this isn’t…right. I have no idea what happened to any of these people. Are they even still alive?”  
  
Taekwoon wraps his arm around Hakyeon’s shoulders and all three of them stand there in silence for a while. Hongbin doesn’t know what to do.  
  
“Wonshik came to see me,” he says finally. He tells them what Wonshik said and the way he’d looked. He even shares his concerns about how Wonshik had gotten into his lab.  
  
“He’s a hacker,” Hakyeon points out. He’s still staring blankly, a frown on his face. “I’m not so surprised that he got in with no trouble. But the fact that it’s taking so long, and the fact that he’s stopped communicating with us…that’s troubling.” He looks up at last, and there’s fire in his eyes. “I’m not saying that we should stop trusting him completely. But we need to know what’s happening. It’s not right for him to keep us so far out of the loop.”  
  
Taekwoon nods slowly, letting go of Hakyeon to sit back down at the desk. He picks up a tablet that Hongbin hadn’t noticed before and swipes practiced fingers over its surface. “There’s something else,” he murmurs, turning the tablet to face the other two.  
  
Hongbin isn’t sure what he’s looking at, at first. It looks like a family tree, but with another moment’s study he realizes that no, it’s not. It’s a _managerial_ tree. And up towards the top, beneath the title ‘Chief Financial Officer’ is a name that he recognizes.  
  
_Kim Wonshik._  
  
“It has to be a coincidence,” he hisses, unable to believe the alternative. “How many people in Korea have the name ‘Wonshik’? How many of them are Kims? It has to be a lot, right?”  
  
Hakyeon nods decisively and pats Hongbin’s shoulder. “You’re right. And everyone at the company knows him as Ravi, right? There’s no reason to think that it’s the same person.”  
  
Hongbin wants to believe it. He wants so badly to believe that he hadn’t almost slept with one of the men who were making people into cyborgs against their will. He wants to believe that he hadn’t almost _fallen in love_ with a man who would do such a thing.  
  
He’s not sure he can believe it, though. This isn’t damning evidence but it’s concerning, too much of a coincidence too close to a conspiracy and to suspicions that are already making it hard to continue trusting in Wonshik’s word.  
  
“One way or another,” Taekwoon whispers, his eyes still fixed on the tablet, his fingers flying over its surface, “we will stop this. Even if we have to do it ourselves.”  
  
He’s right, and Hongbin can do nothing but agree. They have a responsibility to the people of this city. They can’t let them down now.  
  
\---  
  
It takes more courage than Hongbin thought he had in him to hit the button for B9 and to stand in the elevator for that long first thing in the morning. He’s surrounded by people and it feels like he’s going to suffocate. He doesn’t even know if Wonshik will be in the office yet. But he has to know. This has to stop.  
  
He and half a dozen other people spill out into the corridor as soon as the elevator doors open. Hongbin ignores the stares of women with brightly colored hair, ignores how they whisper behind their hands as he goes past.  
  
He doesn’t see Wonshik in the first area, and the narrow hallway between it and the next seems impossibly dark and impossibly tiny and he doesn’t know if he can just…walk through it like he’s meant to be here.  
  
The other option, nearly as terrifying, is what he ends up choosing. He steps up to the nearest desk, clears his throat to get the attention of the woman sitting there, and waits until she looks up.  
  
When she does, it’s after a long draught of coffee, and then her red-stained lips purse and her pale gray eyes narrow and she asks, “Can I help you?”  
  
“I’m, uh,” he hesitates. Words feel heavy and awkward on his tongue. Everything about this feels weird and wrong. “I’m looking for Wo—Ravi. I’m looking for Ravi. Have you seen him?”  
  
She snorts indelicately and turns her attention back to her computer monitor, apparently already finished with this conversation. “Ravi quit weeks ago, Honey,” she drawls.  
  
Hongbin feels like everything stops moving. He’s been helping Wonshik this whole time with the assumption that Wonshik is also here working to stop what’s happening. This feels like a betrayal, cold and hard and unfeeling. “He didn’t tell me,” he mumbles.  
  
The woman tosses her hair back over her shoulder and takes another sip of her coffee, never taking her eyes off her computer screen. “Sorry, Hun,” she says, “but there’s nothing I can do about that. So if you’re done…?”  
  
Hongbin realizes that he’s just been standing beside her work station like a fool. “Right, sorry,” he mutters, and then starts to shuffle away. It hurts more than it should, that Wonshik didn’t even tell him that he was quitting.  
  
“Hey, wait,” another voice calls, and Hongbin pauses because it’s easier than continuing. A woman jogs up to him, electric green eyes and a bright blond bob. She’s head and shoulders shorter than Hongbin, even in heels. He feels like he recognizes her, but he can’t figure out why.  
  
“Um, hi?” he tries. He’s probably making a weird face. He can’t actually tell what he’s doing with it, let alone any of his limbs. How is he still standing?  
  
The woman smiles at him. Her teeth are straight and white, and she gives off an air of energy, like she’s physically restraining herself from bouncing on her toes. “You’re the dreamy mechanic from B18, right?”  
  
Hongbin can only blink at her. For some reason the question echoes around in his head.  
  
_‘Aren’t you the dreamy mechanic from B18?’_  
  
And suddenly Hongbin knows why she’s familiar. He met her in the elevator, that day that he first came here looking for Wonshik. She had guessed (only slightly inaccurately) that they were together.  
  
“I’m Miyeon,” she’s saying. She holds out her hand for him to shake and Hongbin takes it, mumbling his own name in return. “You’re here looking for Ravi, aren’t you?”  
  
Hongbin can’t do anything but nod. Of course he’s looking for Wonshik. Why else would he wander nine floors up from where he works?  
  
She smiles a mischievous little smile, ducking her head so her face is just barely shaded by her short hair. “I might be able to help you get in touch with him,” she says.  
  
Hongbin is willing to do just about anything to understand what’s going on here and stop it. He agrees without hesitation, doesn’t even bother to stop and ask her what her plan is. It doesn’t matter. He needs to talk to Wonshik, and he’s not answering any of their calls now, so anything she has planned is fine as long as he gets the end result that he needs.  
  
She takes his hand and pulls him back towards the elevator. “I think I know where he is,” she explains as they go. “You don’t have to get to work right away, do you?”  
  
No one will even notice if he’s not in his lab. And he’s got a while before his boss will demand another bot, so it’s not like he’ll get in trouble that way, either. He shakes his head.  
  
The wait for the elevator is long and silent, besides the other IT workers chatting in the background. Miyeon just keeps smiling her bright smile and doesn’t say a word. Hongbin’s kind of surprised at that. After all, the last time he was here she tried to flirt with him.  
  
When the doors finally open and they get on, Hongbin expects her to press the button for the lobby, to take him out of the building and lead him to wherever Wonshik is holed up while hiding from them. Instead, she presses a button that Hongbin has never even had reason to _look at._  
  
“Why are we going to the thirty-first floor?” he asks, staring at the little glowing circle like it can give him the answers. This building is thirty-two stories high, with twenty basement levels. The thirty-second floor is the CEO’s office, the office for his secretary, and his private meeting room.  
  
The thirty-first floor is for the rest of the higher-ups. Including, Hongbin acknowledges to himself in a moment of quiet panic, the CFO.  
  
Miyeon shrugs, gives him another smile, and tips her chin up to watch the numbers on the little screen above the door climb higher and higher.  
  
Hongbin is beginning to find her smile unnerving. He wonders if she knows who Wonshik is. Why else would she be taking him here?  
  
It feels like it takes ages to get that high, even though the lift doesn’t have to stop for anyone. Hongbin’s surprised that it will even let them access this floor without special permissions. Maybe Miyeon has them. He doesn’t know anything about the woman, and he’s already starting to regret agreeing to this.  
  
They finally glide to a stop and the doors slide open to reveal a corridor that’s far more opulent than the concrete hallways that Hongbin is used to. He thinks the floor might be marble, or at least a very good imitation, and the walls are pale pink and lined with artworks that he’s pretty sure cost more than the hardware inside his body.  
  
Periodically, there’s a large panel of windows with a glass door leading into an office area. As they start down the hall Hongbin spots padded leather office chairs and huge mahogany desks, carefully tended potted plants and delicate china teacups balanced on sideboards. Each office seems to be furnished with its own espresso bar.  
  
Hongbin feels too tainted and dirty to even be in this place.  
  
But it doesn’t matter in another moment, because they reach the end of the hall, where there are wide double doors made of pale wood and inset with etched-glass windows. The engraved nameplate beside the door says, ‘Kim Wonshik, CFO.’  
  
Miyeon raps her knuckles twice on the door and then lets them in without waiting for a response. The door glides open silently, revealing a room with plush, midnight blue carpet and an arrangement of leather lounge chairs around a low coffee table.  
  
Past the chairs there’s a wide desk, easily big enough that Hongbin could lie down and stretch out on it like it was a bed. And beyond the desk, sitting in a chair made of dark wood and darker leather, and wearing a pure white, double-breasted suit jacket and a fucking bowtie, is Kim _fucking_ Wonshik.  
  
Wonshik blinks up at him, staring through those dark eyes lined in too much dark makeup, and says, “Hongbin?”  
  
Hongbin doesn’t think. He doesn’t ask questions or demand to know what’s going on. Part of him knows that he should, but his heart is beating so fast it feels like it’s going to rip out of his chest and he doesn’t want to be here anymore.  
  
So he does something stupid. He turns on his heel and he fucking runs.

 


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess what? In addition to having this chapter ready on time, I've got the next one nearly finished as well! [pause for dramatic fanfare]
> 
> Seriously though, I'm working a lot harder on making sure that I dedicate time to writing every day, because it's good for my mental health and because I really truly want to share the rest of this story (and many more) with you guys. Also! There will be a Christmas ficlet posted tomorrow, and hopefully one a day for the next two days after that, if I can get my butt in gear. It's a little thank you to all of you people who have been so very very patient with me while I trudge my way through this, so I hope you guys enjoy!

 

It’s not really a conscious decision that he makes, when he spots the stairwell door a few feet down the corridor and slams through it. He leaps down the stairs two at a time, his heart racing faster every time he misses a step and nearly falls. He knows that it’s stupid, trying to escape via the stairs when he’s more than thirty floors up, but he’s not exactly thinking at all right now.  
  
Wonshik is the CFO of JF Industries. He’s been lying to them, to _Hongbin_ all this time and they never even guessed. They never suspected that he was trying to stop them from taking his company down the whole time.  
  
Except...Hongbin never would have known in the first place if it weren’t for Wonshik. He would have lived the rest of his life never knowing how many people he had hurt.  
  
And how many people is it really? He thought he was saving them, and that made it easier to turn people into cyborgs. But if Wonshik hasn’t really been helping those people, then Hongbin has to accept the fact that he has ruined all those lives.  
  
“I can’t,” he says. It’s not until he attempts it that he realizes just how winded he is. The glowing number on the wall says that he’s on the seventeenth floor. He doesn’t know how he’s gotten this far without realizing. He’s surprised that he hasn’t collapsed yet.  
  
Pausing, hunched over on the landing, he tells himself to breathe and wills her not to appear right now. He can’t afford that, can’t think what would happen if Wonshik has followed him and finds him in the middle of a hallucination.  
  
God, Hongbin has broken down in front of him so many times. He trusted Wonshik and yet Wonshik was lying to him the whole time.  
  
“Hongbin!”  
  
That’s Wonshik’s voice, deep and echoing in the concrete stairwell. At least it’s not Youngji.  
  
Hongbin runs.  
  
\---  
  
Thirty-story, concrete-and-steel buildings are pretty much everywhere in Seoul. This one doesn’t look any different from the others, besides its sign.  
  
‘Itaewon Storage.’  
  
_Sure,_ Hongbin tells himself, _I’ve already lost everything, and ruined everything else. What harm can it do?_  
  
He goes inside.  
  
The desk clerk looks bored. Hongbin doesn’t think many people generally come through here in a day, even with as many units as this place has. That’s what happens with long-term storage. He’s not sure why they even have a desk clerk.  
  
He steps up anyway and tells the clerk, “Unit 533.”  
  
The clerk yawns loudly, blinking dark brown eyes at him. Human even, instead of a bot to man the fort. There aren’t many businesses left in Seoul who can say the same. “Scanner,” he mumbles.  
  
Hongbin obligingly puts his finger to the scanner and waits while the clerk taps a few things on his computer screen, seemingly at random and while barely looking at it.  
  
Finally the guy nods, waves at the door to his left, and says, “Have fun.”  
  
Hongbin’s not here for fun, but he doesn’t say that. It’s easier not to get into it with this guy. It would have been better if he hadn’t gotten into it with anyone, but it’s too late now.  
  
The door’s already been given his identity by the facility’s computer system, and it slides open as Hongbin approaches. Past it he has two options: go down a hallway that looks never-ending, with steel doors set into it periodically; or turn immediately left and get on the elevator. His unit is on the fifth floor, so he presses the button for the lift and watches the doors slide open right away. There’s clearly no one else here.  
  
The train ride here was long enough that he’s calmed down some. He’s fairly sure that he got away without Wonshik following him, and there’s no way he’ll find him here. This is one place that Wonshik doesn’t know about, one place that he’ll never look.  
  
It’s a long walk down a quiet, echoing hallway from the lift to his unit. His dress shoes click ominously against the concrete floor, and there’s a quiet buzz of fluorescent lights flickering on above him as he goes.  
  
Unit 533 doesn’t look unique in any way. The door is brushed steel, with no visible flaws, nicks, or dents. The little screen above it that displays the number glows faintly purple. Hongbin touches the fingerprint scanner on the door handle and waits until it beeps, a little light turning green beside his finger.  
  
He’s not prepared for what he’s going to see when he pulls the handle down and shoves the door open, but he knows that he doesn’t have a choice. He can’t wait until he’s ready for this. He has to do it now.  
  
Inside this room is everything that used to be in his house. To his right as he steps in is an antique oak dresser, the one that Youngji had stubbornly hauled from her parents’ house in the country to a tiny apartment in Seoul to the house that Hongbin bought for them to share after they were married.  
  
Back in the corner is her rocking chair, the glider that she made him buy for her when they decided that they wanted a baby. She used to sit in it every day, humming to herself and knitting tiny hats that would never be worn. Every single one she made is in a basket, still resting on the seat of the chair.  
  
There are so many more things, each one with too many memories for him to throw them away, and yet with too many to keep. Living in that house with these things around him had only been tearing him apart, so he packed them up, sold the house, and moved into a one-bedroom apartment that purposefully only had space for the bare necessities.  
  
He shuts the door behind him, and lets himself look around for a moment. The memories rush in with abandon, but they don’t hurt the way they used to. He remembers a time when he couldn’t even look at one of her socks without crying, but with time he’s gained some distance. He’s not sure when it happened, honestly, but for the first time he can think about her and just feel...numb.  
  
He doesn’t think he’ll ever reach remembering her with a smile, but then he was convinced at one time that the only way to stop hurting over her was to get rid of his feelings altogether.  
  
He didn’t just come here to hide from Wonshik and to languish in his grief, though. He squeezes between the rows of neatly packed stuff, shuffling to the back where a pile of boxes are stacked. Most of them are labeled: clothes, shoes, dishes. But there’s one at the bottom of the pile farthest in the corner, blue plastic composite with nothing written on it at all.  
  
He digs it out, setting aside things that might be painful if he allowed them more than a second’s thought. He didn’t really want to come here, but he didn’t have a choice.  
  
He’s not supposed to have this box. As he finally unearths it, he acknowledges that his very possession of it is highly illegal. That doesn’t make it any less necessary, but the grim reminder helps keep him grounded in the moment.  
  
He takes a deep breath as if he’s about to dive in deep water and pulls the box open.  
  
It’s full of electronics—seemingly innocuous, in reality quite dangerous. Pieces of bots that were never supposed to exist, data sticks holding software for programs that the government likes to pretend don’t exist. And mixed in, appearing just as innocent as the rest, are pieces of...well, something he definitely shouldn’t have. Certainly something he shouldn’t know how to assemble.  
  
He picks through the pieces carefully, pulling them out one by one. Some just look like bits of wiring, others are data chips, some small mechanisms that are virtually harmless on their own.  
  
He doesn’t have this because he was every planning to use it. He never hated the world. Himself, certainly, and often enough, but the world at large wasn’t to blame for his wife’s death. This is the way they’ve always lived. How was he to expect everything to change just because he was in love?  
  
But he was an experimenter. In his home workshop, where very few people ever came, he played with things just to know that he could. He built all sorts of things, back when he and Youngji were young and in love and unafraid of the future. This is just another of his experiments, something he built and never tested.  
  
He’ll need a welder and a few other tools. He’s fairly certain that he still has most of those things in his apartment somewhere, and if he’s lucky Wonshik won’t pay him a visit.  
  
He won’t let the company continue to hurt people. And if Wonshik isn’t going to help, if Wonshik is the enemy, then Hongbin will solve this himself.

 

 


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have family in town this week and everything is crazy, so I apologize if this update is timed poorly. I feel like I didn't do my best on this chapter, but it's hella long and hopefully that'll make up for any lack in quality. Enjoy!

 

His doorbell is ringing. Hongbin ignores it, bent over his work and focused on the tiny parts that he’s welding together. The round goggles he wears feel strange on his face; it’s been a while since he’s worked with such old equipment.

There are only a couple of people who know where he lives, and he doesn’t really want to talk to any of them right now. If he sees Hakyeon or Taekwoon, he might lose his resolve to do what he has to. And if he sees Wonshik, well…he’s not convinced that he won’t just fall apart.

He has too many unanswered questions. A tiny part of him, a part that he’s ignoring because he can’t deal with it right now, keeps insisting that he should talk to Wonshik and get his side of the story. But what will stop Wonshik from just lying to him again? Clearly he’s done it before, shamelessly and without remorse. He made Hongbin think that he cared, and for what? So that he won’t hurt the operation?

Hongbin wishes that he’d just allowed himself to get fired, all those months ago. It would be easier than what he’s doing now, and maybe he would have just ended up drowning himself in alcohol, but it would have been preferable to feeling the way that he does now.

The pain he felt when he lost his wife was the worst he’s ever felt. This situation hasn’t changed that, hasn’t overwhelmed him the way losing her did. Back then, he felt as though someone had slowly removed his heart with a rusty knife. Right now, he’s angry more than anything else, though there’s the hurt of betrayal simmering behind it. Wonshik had no right to lead him on the way he did, and Hongbin doesn’t have any plans to forgive him.

The doorbell rings again, and Hongbin sets the welder aside in favor of a tiny pliers, lifting a computer chip and sliding it into place, connecting it to the little bits of wire that are waiting for it. The pile of parts that he’d spread out across the stainless steel work surface in his bedroom is slowly coming together and starting to look like something.

There’s a banging, the sound of someone pounding their fist against his front door, but Hongbin ignores that too. If it was Hakyeon at the door he would have called Hongbin by now, or just used the fucking lock code and come in. Which means that it’s probably Wonshik, and he’s probably angry. Hongbin doesn’t want to talk to him.

The thing on his desk doesn’t exactly look like much: long, kind of cylindrical, wider on one end than the other. It has a tiny, nearly obsolete display screen on the wider end. Hongbin is pretty sure that if it was on he’d be able to count each individual pixel on it.

Another chip, some more wiring, and Hongbin sets the pliers down. It’s ugly as fuck and he doesn’t even know if it’s actually functional. If it’s not, he doesn’t know what he’s going to do, because he really only has one shot at this.

The banging has stopped, and Hongbin prays that that means that Wonshik has gone away. Maybe he’s finally convinced that Hongbin isn’t home.

The distinctive beep of the locking mechanism disengaging in the next moment ruins that theory, and then the door hinges squeak as it swings open. Hongbin can’t pretend he’s not home if Wonshik is going to _break into his apartment_ , so he takes a deep breath, leaves the device where it is, and gets up.

He closes the bedroom door behind him as he steps out, and catches Wonshik in the middle of slipping off his (definitely expensive) dress shoes in the entryway.

“Hongbin,” Wonshik whispers hoarsely. He sounds like he’s been yelling for hours. That shouldn’t make Hongbin feel guilty but it does anyway.

Hongbin crosses his arms, leans against the door he’s just shut, and asks, “What do you want, Wonshik?” He’s staring at the wall in front of him instead of the man to his right. It’s easier this way.

Wonshik comes further into the apartment, leans against the wall almost directly opposite Hongbin and takes up a similar stance. “We need to talk.”

“About what?” Hongbin says, not feigning ignorance, just being difficult. He doesn’t want to see Wonshik. He’s not sure he has the strength for this confrontation.

“What you saw today….” Wonshik huffs and scrubs a hand through his hair. It makes the blond strands stick out in all directions, stiff from the dye. “It’s not what you think.”

“You don’t know what I think,” Hongbin retorts, forcing his eyes to focus on his apartment’s bad paint-job instead of on Wonshik’s unfairly attractive face.

Wonshik nods a little, makes a strange gravelly noise in the make of his throat that he may have intended to be a hum of assent, and says, “You’re right. We really don’t know much about each other at all, do we?”

And isn’t that a laugh, because Wonshik knows more about Hongbin than anyone else alive. He knows about the grief that Hongbin suffered and the things that he did to fight it and he knows about the hallucinations and the drinking and…and there’s only one thing that Hongbin hasn’t told him, that he hasn’t told anyone, and he doesn’t plan to. This one thing, just this one thing, he’ll keep to himself, keep close to his heart. No one deserves to know, and whether Wonshik may have guessed or not, Hongbin will never admit to anything. This is his secret.

“We don’t,” Hongbin agrees. There’s a weird nick in the paint, just about shoulder level. He stares at it until his eyes start to cross.

Wonshik musses his hair again, takes a deep breath, and seems to steel himself. “I wasn’t completely truthful with you,” he admits.

Hongbin snorts, but doesn’t comment.

“Okay,” Wonshik says, voice wry, “that was a massive understatement. But look, I just…how would it have looked, if my request came from one of the higher-ups I was trying to convince you to fight?”

Maybe he’s trying for sympathy. Hongbin doesn’t have any to give. “So you lied to me?”

“I lied to everyone,” Wonshik amends. “When I found out what the other directors were doing behind my back, I…wait, this isn’t going to make any sense unless I start at the beginning.” He gestures towards the living room. “Can we sit?”

Hongbin stays exactly where he is, stationed between Wonshik and the device that will solve everything. He stares at the wall and he doesn’t respond to the request and eventually Wonshik sighs and continues.

“Fine,” he says. “I wasn’t lying about how I became like this.” He lifts his right arm, flexing the fingers and watching the artificial skin pull over the joints. “Not many people know that I used to work in a factory, or about my injury, or even about how I actually became CFO at the company. I told you because I trusted you.”

The use of past tense in reference to his trust in Hongbin stings, just a bit. Hongbin grits his teeth and tells himself not to react. He trusted Wonshik too, and look where that’s gotten him.

Wonshik is staring at Hongbin; he can see it from the corner of his eye. Wonshik’s eyes are intense and dark, and Hongbin can imagine how captivating his gaze would be if Hongbin turned to look. “My dad abandoned us shortly after my sister was born,” he mumbles. “My mom was…she did her best for us. But she had a six-year-old and a new baby and she was working sixty-hour weeks sometimes to put food on the table and by the time I was ten I was watching Jiwon fulltime.”

Hongbin doesn’t know how he’s supposed to feel about this. Why is Wonshik even telling him? If he means to somehow make his betrayal less painful by garnering sympathy for his own plight, he’s doing it all wrong. Hongbin has had it worse. At least Wonshik’s sister is still alive.

“We were lucky,” he says. “We had Mom until I was eighteen. That was when I started working in the factory, and we were fine until the accident. Jiwon graduated from a good high school, got into college, was going to make something of herself. I was fine being a nobody as long as she was happy. And then I got hurt and I thought that it would ruin everything, that I would never be able to put her through college if I was a cripple.

“That was when Dad found me.”

Hongbin feels his head snap up of its own accord, and he finally meets Wonshik’s eyes. There’s weakness there, vulnerability that Hongbin has seen often enough in himself but never in Wonshik. Right now Wonshik is baring everything to him, all the shame and hurt that he’s suffered. It’s not the same as Hongbin’s, it’s not as intense and all-consuming, maybe, but that doesn’t make it less valid.

Hongbin keeps the eye contact and listens, because even if he can’t do anything else for Wonshik, even if he has to throw him away for the sake of the greater good after this, he can at least give him the respect and attention that these truths deserve.

“Somehow he knew everything about me. He’d been keeping an eye on us for a while, he said,” Wonshik’s smile is wry and brittle. Hongbin doesn’t comment. “He promised to get me the best surgeon there was. I had already decided on Hakyeon.” He must see the question in Hongbin’s eyes, because he murmurs, “No, he never knew what kind of doctor Hakyeon _actually_ was. To his dying breath, my dear old dad thought that Hakyeon just had exceptional skills. He didn’t know what I was.”

“How did you pay for the other surgeries?” Hongbin finds himself asking. He doesn’t know why he wants to know, just that he wants any truth out of Wonshik that he can get, while he’ll still tell them.

“We told Dad that they were revision surgeries, to improve the function in my hand. He bought it.” Wonshik shakes his head. “I didn’t feel bad lying to him. He left us for almost twenty years and then waltzed back in like we’d forgive him no matter what. I hated him.”

Hongbin nods, loses himself in staring at nothing again. It takes him a moment to realize that Wonshik is waiting for him to say something. “Why did you take his money, then?”

Wonshik snorts. “I felt like I deserved it—repayment for all the years that we’d had to get along without him. And in the end, it turned out that what he was doing wasn’t completely selfless.”

Hongbin looks back up and eyes Wonshik thoughtfully. He looks ragged, worn and tired and every bit his thirty-seven years. The crisp white suit jacket that fit his frame so well inside his office suddenly seems wrong on him here. “What happened?” Hongbin asks quietly.

“He was dying,” Wonshik says, shrugging. “He needed someone to take over his position in JF Industries. I was wildly unqualified, of course—no college education, no contacts, no experience. But I was his son, and when he passed me all his shares and declared me his successor, apparently there wasn’t much that they could do.

“I was convinced that I was going to fuck up somehow. I had no idea what I was doing and everything was stacked against me. The directors still don’t like me and the CEO barely tolerates my existence. There are a lot of things that are off the books that I wouldn’t have known about if it weren’t for my…other skill set.”

Hongbin thinks of the super-computer that must be implanted in Wonshik’s head. He wonders how many things Wonshik has casually hacked over the years, and how many secrets he’s revealed. “So you’re, what, trying to cause reforms? Trying to take the company down from the top?”

“I was trying to fix things,” Wonshik admits. “I’ve been fighting this company’s illegal ventures since day one. And I would have been content to stay that way, if I hadn’t found out about the bots.”

Hongbin shudders, thinking about all cyborgs that he’s made—all the people that he’s hurt.

Wonshik reaches out for him and then seems to think better of it, and lets his hand fall back down to his side. “Hongbin, you have to believe that I never would have condoned this if I’d known it was happening.”

“I don’t know anything about you,” Hongbin says. It’s true, but he didn’t mean for it to cause the hurt that lances across Wonshik’s face. Hongbin never meant to hurt anyone.

“Then let me show you who I am,” Wonshik says. “Let me stop this.”

Hongbin shakes his head. He’s trusted Wonshik for this long, and Wonshik has only let him down. “It’s been nearly a year since you found out, and as far as I can see you haven’t done a fucking thing. How can I trust you now?”

Wonshik shakes a little, as his hand raises to run through his hair again. “What can I do to prove that I’m trying my best?” he pleads.

Hongbin doesn’t know. He runs a hand over his face, shakes his head, wants to say something but can’t put together words. “You can’t,” he whispers at last.

Taking a shuddering breath, Wonshik says, “What if I take you to see the others?”

Hongbin snorts. “What others? The ones you were supposedly helping but are probably just reprogrammed and serving in some rich person’s house right now?”

“Hyuk wasn’t,” Wonshik points out.

Hongbin makes an aborted slashing motion in the air with one hand. “You can’t prove that,” he hisses. “Taemin was the richest fucking person I’ve ever seen. How can you really tell me that Hyuk wasn’t serving him?”

Wonshik’s face falls, and he drops it into his hands and mumbles, “Okay, I see your point. Just…please, Hongbin. Give me one more chance.”

Hongbin feels a sob building in his throat. He can’t do this. He doesn’t want to cry in front of Wonshik and he certainly doesn’t want to let himself trust again just to have it ruined. What are the chances that Wonshik isn’t just deceiving him again?

But he has to make a decision. If nothing else, he has to find a way to get Wonshik to leave. “Meet me at Hakyeon’s office,” he says. “Bring Ken…and Hyuk. And if I find out you’re fucking lying to me again….” He leaves the threat implied, because he’s honestly not sure what he’ll do. He just knows that he has to do something. They can’t leave things like this.

Wonshik lifts his face up, gaping at Hongbin and nodding eagerly. “Of course,” he agrees, far too easily. How much of this has been an act?

“This doesn’t mean I trust you,” Hongbin snaps, just to make it perfectly clear. He still can’t look at Wonshik. His eyes ache and he’s worried he’ll start crying any minute. “Now get out.”

Heaving a great gasping sigh, Wonshik does as he’s told.

Hongbin watches him go, his eyes on Wonshik’s feet as he slips them into shining leather ankle boots. Those shoes probably cost more than Hongbin’s entire apartment. He wonders how many pairs just like them Wonshik has at home.

Finally, Wonshik leaves and the door falls shut behind him, the lock re-engaging with a bright series of beeps. Hongbin tells himself that he’s glad to see him go, but can’t help acknowledging the fact that he focuses for a little too long on the slope of Wonshik’s shoulders as he ducks out of sight.

 

 


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I should have things to say but I don't? I'm like 90% sure that I was asleep while writing parts of this chapter because I didn't remember bits of it when I gave it the last read-through just now. But yeah, there's plot and stuff. Please enjoy.

 

Hakyeon’s eyebrows make a valiant attempt at merging with his hairline when Hongbin walks into his office later that afternoon. Hongbin didn’t call ahead. He probably should have.  
  
“Wonshik’s coming,” he tells Hakyeon, slumping down into the chair in the middle of the room like this is a normal appointment. Taekwoon stands in the doorway staring at them both. He’d barely managed to stand up before Hongbin brushed past him and now he just seems resigned, though his expressions are as hard to read as ever.  
  
Hakyeon shoves against the counter at the back of the room and just manages to stop his rolling stool before he collides with the exam chair. “Why the hell would he come here?” he asks. He doesn’t sound especially concerned, but Hongbin’s pretty sure that he should be.  
  
“Well,” Hongbin mumbles, lacing his fingers together and stretching the tendons. His hand wasn’t shaking, but it never hurts to be extra limber…you know, just in case. “He’s apparently CFO of the company that made your husband into a cyborg, so.” He shrugs.  
  
Hakyeon’s eyes go wide and he takes several deep, slow breaths. “Okay,” he says, glancing up at Taekwoon. “Let’s start from the beginning, yeah?”  
  
Taekwoon closes the exam room door behind himself and pulls over the rickety little chair from the corner, and with gentle words and voices they coax the story out of Hongbin.  
  
He doesn’t tell them about the device that he built, or about his visit to the storage facility at all, actually. They don’t need to know. It won’t help anything. But he does tell them about going to Wonshik’s office, about running away, about Wonshik finding him at his apartment and the conversation that they had.  
  
In spite of himself, he leaves out the darker parts of Wonshik’s history. Hakyeon knows most of it—he has to—but that doesn’t mean that it’s Hongbin’s place to talk about it, even if Wonshik is a lying traitorous bastard.  
  
When he’s done, he looks from Hakyeon to Taekwoon and back again, hoping that one of them will have answers for him. What is he supposed to do? Can he ever trust Wonshik again? Was he an idiot for thinking that someone might just genuinely be interested in him?  
  
Taekwoon speaks for the first time since Hongbin got here. “The situation is complicated,” he admits, “but if Wonshik is truly genuine about helping to end this…then we should at least hear him out, should we not?”  
  
Hakyeon waits for Hongbin’s small nod of agreement before he slaps his hands down on his thighs and declares, “Well, then! We’ll just have to be prepared when he gets here. Don’t let your guard down, but try to keep an open mind, alright?”  
  
Hongbin nods again, feeling kind of lost and floaty. The last thing he needs is to disassociate right now, but he’s not sure that he’s really going to have control over anything in another moment.  
  
Hakyeon seems to sense his disquiet though, or it’s more obvious on his face than he thinks, because he lays gentle, grounding hands on Hongbin’s shoulders and squeezes for a moment. “We’ve got this, Hongbin,” he promises. “You’re not in this alone.”  
  
Hongbin knows that, but he also knows that in some ways, he is completely and utterly alone. That he will always _be_ alone, because no one can see inside his head or his heart anymore. Youngji always knew exactly how he was feeling and how to make it better, but she’s gone now and all he’s got is a vague shadow of her that’s been tainted by his own mistakes.  
  
“I just need a minute, if that’s okay,” he says, closing his eyes tightly.  
  
Hakyeon hums softly and says, “Okay. Yeah, take as long as you need. We’ll let you know when Wonshik gets here.”  
  
Hongbin grunts in acknowledgement and leans back in the chair. He’s comfortable here; and isn’t that sad, that he’s so familiar with a place that most people would associate with great pain?  
  
He lets himself float, acknowledging the thoughts that come and focusing on the breathing exercises that Hakyeon taught him. He _can_ control what goes on in his own head. He doesn’t have to let himself feel this way.  
  
It doesn’t exactly work, but the deep breaths calm him if nothing else. God willing, he won’t fall apart during this meeting, and she won’t show up unbidden.  
  
There’s a knock at the door, three sharp taps. Hongbin startles in his seat and has to fight himself back to calm. He presses a hand to the hammering in his chest, runs the other through his hair, tells himself that it’s okay.  
  
Wonshik is out there, and everything he told Hongbin was a lie, but Hongbin is going to listen to him talk some more anyway. God, he doesn’t want to be here anymore.  
  
The knock comes again, quicker and louder this time, and Hongbin can imagine Hakyeon’s scrunched face as he wordlessly demands Hongbin’s presence.  
  
“I’m coming,” Hongbin calls out, and he heaves himself out of the chair. It’s more effort than it should be. Everything is more effort than it should be. He’s not going to collapse in the middle of this though; that would be embarrassing.  
  
When he opens the door and looks out at Hakyeon’s reception area, it’s the most full he’s ever seen it. Taekwoon is in the rolling chair at the perpetually empty receptionist’s desk, his arms crossed and a deep scowl marring the smooth lines of his face. Hakyeon stands behind him with his hands braced on Taekwoon’s broad shoulders, staring down the men who have invaded his office.  
  
Wonshik came like he said he would, and he’s standing there, still in his stupidly expensive suit, bowtie lost and collar undone and fidgeting like he’s actually _nervous._ Behind him, Hyuk is slouched in one of the hard plastic waiting-room chairs, and he appears to be picking at his nails. Ken, meanwhile, has taken control of the desk in front of Taekwoon, perched on it with his legs swinging back and forth, humming to himself as though this is a perfectly normal day and he’s come here under perfectly normal circumstances.  
  
Hongbin doesn’t want to look at them; any of them. Just the sight of them is like the embodiment of all his failures for the last six months. For the last decade, maybe. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to feel, and it’s stupid because he was the one who told Wonshik to come here, who ordered him to bring these two.  
  
Hongbin realizes that he barely remembers Hyuk and Ken. It’s been months, and he’s made so many others since then. He should be surprised, or shocked, or disgusted that it was so easy to purge himself of the memory of people who likely would never forget him. How could they? He made them what they are.  
  
The silence has gone on for too long, the lot of them staring at each other and waiting for someone to speak, so Hongbin breaks it.  
  
“I’m surprised you got here so fast.” He has to fight not to flinch at the sound of his own voice, at the venom that comes out without his consent.  
  
Wonshik shrugs, looks at a point just above Hongbin’s shoulder instead of looking him in the eye. “I had something to prove,” he says. It’s too raw, too honest, and Hongbin has to fight not to believe it instinctually. He doesn’t know that it’s the truth just because Wonshik makes it sound so. He doesn’t know anything about Wonshik anymore. Maybe he never did.  
  
“Prove it then,” Hongbin insists. He crosses his arms over his chest and stands up as straight as he can. The posturing makes him feel like a fraud, but he has no confidence of his own so he’ll just have to borrow some.  
  
Wonshik lifts his hands to either side of himself, encompassing…everything, the room at large, or maybe just the two cyborgs he’s brought with him. “They’re fine,” he says. “All of them are fine. They’re at safe-houses or being relocated. They’re starting new lives, or trying to get back what they can of their old ones. I’m doing what I can for them.”  
  
Hongbin doesn’t want to believe the earnest tone of Wonshik’s voice or the wideness of his eyes as they finally focus on Hongbin’s. He can tell that Wonshik is trying, whether he’s being truthful or not. He wants Hongbin’s trust.  
  
“Then why am I still doing this?” Hongbin asks. It’s not what he meant to say, but he needs to know the answer. He’s spent too long being someone that he doesn’t want to be.  
  
“Because I’m a failure,” Wonshik admits. His eyes drop from Hongbin’s, look down at Hongbin’s scuffed dress shoes instead. “And because some part of me thought that we were doing something good.”  
  
“How could you think that?” The question, sharp and too loud, doesn’t come from Hongbin’s mouth. It comes from Hakyeon; Hongbin had almost forgotten that he’s even here. “After everything that you’ve been through, Wonshik—“  
  
“I know,” Wonshik interrupts him. “It was stupid. But I watched all the bots that Hongbin made march out the door, I personally saw them all taken to safe-houses and I thought, ‘This is good. We’re making a difference. All of these people will live, will never have to fear the Black Lung, will never know that kind of suffering again.’” He takes a deep breath that rattles in his throat like he’s holding back tears. “I guess I…wanted to play god.”  
  
Hongbin doesn’t have words for what he’s feeling right now, and neither, it seems, does anyone else. They all stand there, watching Wonshik stand in their midst and fight himself, in total silence.  
  
“I know I’ll never make up for what I’ve done,” Wonshik says at last. “I know I can’t possibly make up for letting this go on, for not being able to save all of the people that the other engineers have worked on, for not…being truthful with all of you. But I’m not going to sit around and let it happen anymore. I’m going to fix things now, I swear it.”  
  
They’re all quiet for another long moment, while Wonshik takes hitching breaths and rubs futilely at his leaking eyes.  
  
Hongbin knows that now is the time. He has two choices, and both of them will be difficult and painful and will require more trust than he’s sure he possesses. But he has to make the decision now.  
  
He says, “There’s a device in my apartment that could cause an entire office building to implode.”  
  
The room goes utterly still, absent even of breath for a few jarring seconds. And then they all turn to stare at him with wide eyes, and Hakyeon lets out a high distressed noise, and Hyuk’s jaw goes slack.  
  
Wonshik, his face blotchy with tears but shocked out of crying, looks at Hongbin with a glint in his eye as a slow smirk spreads across his features. “You’ve been busy,” he accuses.  
  
Hongbin shrugs and allows himself to meet Wonshik’s eyes properly, staring into them and reminding himself of all the reasons why Wonshik is a bad idea.  
  
Wonshik looks at the others, gauging their reactions, and when he turns back to Hongbin he nods once. “I have an idea,” he says.  
  
Of course he does.

 


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's this? Another update just a week after the last one? That's right; I've gotten about 5k words written in the last week and I'm still going strong, so I decided I'd go back to weekly updates, and hopefully I'll be able to keep it up until the end of the fic. There's not much left now, guys. I'm not gonna give you a definite number, but it's probably gonna be around five more chapters and possibly an epilogue. Enjoy!

 

Hongbin walks into the JF Industries building with the feeling that the leather satchel slung over his shoulder is like a 3,000-lumen beacon declaring, ‘I’m here to sabotage your entire company and destroy everything you’ve worked for.’  
  
He’s nearly hyperventilating by the time that he reaches the elevator, and his palms are sweating so much that wiping them on his slacks does next to nothing. He’s shaking all over and his heart is hammering a thousand beats a minute and he’s only lucky that the lobby is nearly deserted, besides the bot at the front counter. He’s not sure that he would manage this otherwise.  
  
The elevator doors slide open and Hongbin forces himself to step in, one foot after another, until he’s inside and the button for B18 has been pressed and he’s descending into the bowels of the building. There’s no turning back now.  
  
An hour ago, Wonshik roused the company’s board of directors from their beds and called an emergency meeting. Hongbin thinks of all of those men, most of them probably rotund and graying and starting to cough because everyone always starts to cough, and he wants to feel nothing at the thought of what’s going to happen to them.  
  
He can’t, though. Youngji would say that he wouldn’t be him if he could think of causing someone’s death and feel nothing. She would be right. She was always right.  
  
The elevator lets him off on B18 and Hongbin starts the long, familiar trek down to his lab at the end of the hall. His footsteps echo rhythmically against the concrete walls and his breathing is harsh in his ears and there’s little other noise besides the constant whir of the ventilation system and the flickering of the fluorescent lights. There’s probably not anyone here, he tells himself. It’s the middle of the night and any sane person would be at home in bed at this hour.  
  
He scans his fingerprint on the door lock and it beeps brightly at him, the door swinging open like it’s welcoming him home. This isn’t his home, and after today it’s probably not going to exist anymore. He tells himself that he feels nothing at the idea and forces away any thoughts that suggest otherwise.  
  
It creaks as it closes behind him, and the slam and clank as it locks him in sounds more final than it should.  
  
His computer is dark and silent. Hongbin sits down in his desk chair and turns to face it, runs his hands lingeringly over the keyboard, over the silver edge of one monitor. This place was his solace when he had none, the glow of the screen and its soft noises the only company he had in this vast, empty space.  
  
As he waits for the computer to start up, he looks around, takes in all the sights that he’s never going to see again. The bot stand is silent and empty. Just a few days ago Woozi stepped off of that platform and Hongbin sent him off just like all the others. He wonders if the kid actually got the things that he wanted—comfy sweaters and a music studio and an existence where he wasn’t a slave. Hongbin has no way of knowing right now. It shouldn’t matter.  
  
It does matter, to him in this headspace, where he’s trying desperately to think about anything other than what’s about to happen—no, what he’s about to do.  
  
The computer pings at him, asking for his login credentials. He slides his finger over the pad, watches the monitor as it lights up pink and then dissolves into his home screen. There are a dozen things he could do at this point. If this were a normal day at work he would be opening his design program, picking up a graphics tablet to start drawing new bots.  
  
He pulls the leather satchel off his shoulder instead, and flips it open to dig in the front pocket. It’s not hard to find what he’s looking for—it’s the only item in that pocket, and its hard metal surface is familiar down to the last scratch.  
  
He stands to plug it in at the back of one of the monitors but has to pause. She’s standing there in front of him, between the bot stand and the desk, staring at him with wide, sad eyes.  
  
“Youngji,” he hears himself say.  
  
Her lips spread in a soft smile. She’s wearing one of his sweaters, the deep blue one with the flecks of white that she made him for his birthday and allowed him to wear exactly once before she claimed it as her own. Underneath it, white denim hugs her thighs and calves, disappearing into black boots that zip up the outside. Her hair is a sleek curtain over her shoulders. This is his wife as he’s struggled to remember her for the past decade, the woman that he fell in love with all those years ago.  
  
“You’re doing the right thing,” she tells him.  
  
Hongbin exhales on a sob. The relief that those words bring him is palpable, even if she is just a figment of his imagination. “I only ever wanted you back,” he says.  
  
She takes a step forward and makes an aborted motion as if to reach for him. “I know,” she replies. Her voice is so precious, so tender. Hongbin wants to hold her so badly that it’s a physical ache inside him. “But that,” she waves a hand at the data card in his hand, “was never going to replace me.”  
  
“I knew that,” he whispers. “I knew that even as I was doing it. I couldn’t help myself.” His free hand clutches at the front of his dress shirt, crumpling the fabric further than it already was. “Being without you felt _impossible_.”  
  
Shaking her head, she says, “Would you have been happy, with a bot that looked and talked and acted like me, even though you’d always know in your heart that I was gone?”  
  
Hongbin wants to look down in shame, but he’s terrified that she’ll disappear if he takes his eyes off of her. “No,” he says. “I wouldn’t have. I probably…would have done even worse, if I’d been allowed to keep it. But I just wanted more time.”  
  
“There was never enough time in the world for us, Hongbin,” she says gently. She takes another step forward, and she’s right on the other side of the desk now, so close that Hongbin could reach out and touch her. He keeps his hands right where they are. “You’re going to be okay,” she promises.  
  
Hongbin feels tears spill down his cheeks and fights the blur in his vision as he lets out a sob. “I miss you,” he tells her.  
  
“I know you do,” she murmurs. Her eyes are soft and her hair looks so silky and she’s _right there_ but Hongbin can’t touch her. “This is the last time, Hongbin.”  
  
Somewhere inside him he knew that already. He hasn’t seen her like this in months. After this is over, he won’t have much reason left to keep drawing her out of the afterlife, if that’s what this is. He knows it’s probably all in his head, but something tells him…that by the end of this day he’s not going to have any need of her anymore.  
  
“I love you,” he says, needs to say. Maybe she’s real, or maybe she’s not. If she’s not, he can at least hope that she can hear him in the afterlife.  
  
She leans forward, across the desk, over his computer monitors, and her hand reaches for him. It’s a stretch even with the heels on her boots, but she cups his face and ghosts a kiss across his lips.  
  
He can’t help closing his eyes, reveling in a half-remembered sensation. Her lips are plush and soft, dry and smooth against his own—or maybe that’s just how it is in his head.  
  
“Goodbye, my love,” she whispers.  
  
When he opens his eyes, she’s gone.  
  
  



	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notice that second number up there next to the one that says this is chapter thirty? Yep, that's right, I'm finished writing and we are rapidly approaching the end. Thank you so much for your continued support throughout all of this madness, and please enjoy the rest of the ride!

 

All he’s left with is a small piece of metal clutched in his hand, biting into the skin of his palm. This is all that remains of the bot that he made after she died. The rest was confiscated by the government years ago.  
  
He leans over the monitor to finally plug the damn thing in and tries not to remember the night that they came. He tries not to think about her screams in that high, shrill voice (so like his Youngji and yet not right at all) and the way that she struggled as they dragged her out the door.  
  
He’d found the data card in the driveway later, after he’d stopped drinking and crying for long enough to venture out of the house (or maybe because he needed more alcohol, he doesn’t remember now) and he’d been surprised that the police had been so negligent as to lose it. He does remember clutching it and crying while knelt on the pavement, so broken and so grateful to have even such a small piece of her left.  
  
His computer protests the presence of the foreign data card, but he ignores it. He goes mechanically through the instructions that Wonshik gave him—making sure his computer is connected to the company network, hacking the firewall so that all the computers in the building will be affected, and then he opens the command box for the data card.  
  
The cursor blinks at him, and he takes his hands off the keyboard so he won’t press any buttons by accident.  
  
It shouldn’t even be a question. He shouldn’t be hesitating over this, but he knows that as soon as he gives the command that tells it to destroy all the data, there’s no going back. This—tainted and broken and faded with time as it is—contains all his memories of her.  
  
Hongbin thinks of the words that she spoke to him, thinks of the storage room full with her things, thinks of Wonshik upstairs fighting for this same thing.  
  
He puts his fingers back on the keyboard and types the command.  
  
For a moment it seems that nothing at all has happened. The computer dings at him, informs him in curling silver script that it is processing his request. And then after a moment, the whole screen goes dark.  
  
Following that, the lights go out as well. He feels his heartrate pick up again and forces himself to breathe. Deep breath in as he counts to five, deep breath out until a count of ten, squeezing his abs until the very last vestiges of breath are pressed from his lungs. And then he does it again, and again, and again.  
  
He’s waiting. He pulls his phone out of his pocket, looks at the time. Three minutes since his monitor went dark. Within five minutes, the backup systems should take over and bring the lights back on, assuming they weren’t connected to the main network. Wonshik didn’t think they were, not in such a way that they would go down with the rest.  
  
Another minute ticks by, and Hongbin drums his fingers on his knee. If something goes wrong, Wonshik will call him. If he’s not supposed to continue with the plan, Wonshik will call him.  
  
If he hears nothing….  
  
The lights come back on. Hongbin has to blink rapidly as his eyes adjust. Being able to see calms him down, a bit. He can do this. Maybe he won’t even have to finish. Maybe deleting their systems will be enough.  
  
He waits a few more minutes, leaning back in the chair and just…being. Hakyeon is probably worrying himself sick right now. At least Taekwoon is there with him, to help calm him down. Hakyeon is not alone. He’ll never have to _be_ alone, if Hongbin has anything to say about it. He’s not sure he will, after this, so in the silence he sends up prayers for Hakyeon and Taekwoon, for Ken and Hyuk and all the others whose lives he changed forever. There’s nothing he can do for them now except what he’s already doing.  
  
It’s been nearly ten minutes since the lights came back on and he’s heard nothing, so he opens the leather satchel again, unzips the main pocket this time and puts his hands on the device.  
  
He holds it with almost reverent care. This—this innocuous, seemingly harmless device—could take down this whole building and everyone in it. Handled incorrectly, it would take only a single moment for them all to perish, for the whole place to collapse.  
  
Hongbin knows that it’s not as delicate as his thoughts make it seem. He shoved it in a bag, didn’t he? He carried it all the way here, on the train and through the lobby and down the elevator, and he’s still in one piece. It’s completely harmless until he sets the detonation process.  
  
He puts it on the pedestal of his bot stand. The thing contains enough percussive force to destroy an entire city block, if positioned correctly. He lays it wide end down, directed so that it will pound through fifty floors of cement and steel beams and cause the structure to fall in on itself. The least damage, the least death; it’s always been what they were aiming for.  
  
He waits another seven minutes, but there’s no word from Wonshik. He has his orders.  
  
Hands shaking, Hongbin switches on the device, watches the little screen on its side turn blue and offer a very simple list of commands.  
  
He presses ‘Detonate’ and waits as it loads a confirmatory screen.  
  
 _‘Are you sure?’_ it asks him. Beneath the words is the dark outline of an oval, roughly the size of a finger. Hongbin takes a deep breath, checks the time once more, and figures he can’t wait any longer. If Wonshik didn’t call, if Hongbin didn’t hear anything, he was supposed to go through with the plan.  
  
He presses his finger to the screen. Around it, the blue glow turns to red. When he lifts his hand away he sees that it’s started a countdown. Ten minutes.  
  
He has ten minutes to say goodbye to this place forever, to step out of his lab, out of this building for the last time. Ten minutes to walk away like he was never here, to go back to a life where he has nothing and no one, where he’s a cyborg who can’t do the one thing that he wants to do and can’t have the one thing that he wants to have.  
  
He backs up a few steps and leans on the edge of the desk. Staying wouldn’t be so bad, he thinks. This near the blast, he’ll likely feel nothing as the device rips him to shreds.  
  
His phone dings, a brittle noise in his earpiece that declares he has a message. He accepts it without thinking, tapping the earpiece with one finger and listening with half an ear as it starts to play the recording.  
  
 _“I set this to send around the time you’d be starting the device,”_ Wonshik’s voice says in his ear, _“and I know it’s the last thing you want to hear, but I have to tell you: get out, Hongbin. You have more to offer the world. This doesn’t have to be the end.”_ He goes silent for a few precious seconds, and Hongbin thinks that perhaps the message is over, but then, very quietly, he says, _“God, this is stupid, but I love you. I don’t know how it happened or why, but I fucking love you. Live, you bastard.”_  
  
It disconnects for real after that, and Hongbin, starved for air and feeling like his heart is going to burst and shatter into a thousand pieces, glances at the time readout on the device. Eight minutes.  
  
He runs.  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief note here. I am taking fic requests for the rest of February, and I would love for all of you to participate! Check out my Tumblr post [here](http://phantomflutist.tumblr.com/post/156680719727/fic-request-february) for more info!


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is long and it is intense. Prepare yourselves. Also: I almost killed him.

 

He wastes time at the door. The back-up computers were supposed to bring the locking mechanisms back online too, but his seems to have malfunctioned and he has to punch the manual button and then turn a hand crank until he hears the giant steel bolt inside the door release and it swings open.  
  
He slips through, praying that he has enough time, that the elevator isn’t offline too.  
  
The opposite end of the hallway is dark, and there’s no light above the elevator door, no sign that it’s functioning at all. He doesn’t have time to waste going all the way down there to check it, so instead he detours halfway down the corridor, slams through a little-used door and starts on the stairs two and three steps at a time.  
  
Once, half a lifetime ago it seems, he’d told Taekwoon not to use the stairs. They were eighteen floors down, and no sane person would climb that many flights unless they had good reason. He feels like if anything’s a good reason, it’s this.  
  
He’s panting by B12, struggling for breath as he keeps pushing himself. One more step, and two here, and swing himself around with a hand on the railing and start in on the next flight. B11. He can do this.  
  
He has no idea how many minutes he has left. For all he knows he could be too late. He forces himself to go faster even as his thighs burn. He regrets not letting Hakyeon do more work on him. If his legs were robotic he would have no trouble with stairs.  
  
B9. He runs straight past the door that would take him into the IT department. His whole mind is on his race against the clock and he doesn’t even pause to remember the things that happened there, the fact that if he’d never gone there that day looking for Wonshik then he wouldn’t be here right now.  
  
The numbers get smaller. B7, B6, B5. He’s almost there, and he pushes his aching body as hard as he can, pulls himself up the last step onto B4 with his arms instead and keeps going.  
  
Wonshik loves him. Wonshik told him to get out. Maybe it’s stupid to believe it, but Hongbin doesn’t have much left to believe in. B3. He’s nearly at the lobby now.  
  
_“I fucking love you.”_  
  
Hongbin thinks of Youngji, of how much difference there is between his love for her and the love that Wonshik professes to have for him. Hongbin’s love for her was pure and untainted, the way only first love can be. They were so happy. Can he be that way with Wonshik?  
  
B2. It feels like it takes ages to finish this flight of stairs. The paint on the railings is chipped and the bright yellow caution tape on the edges of the steps is worn through the middle where it gets walked on frequently.  
  
B1. After this is the ground floor, and Hongbin feels his hands shaking and his breath juddering in his lungs and tells himself to hold on.  
  
He reaches the ground floor with a broken-glass feeling in his throat and no idea how much time he has left. The back exit is to his right as he slams through the stairwell door, a few precious steps closer than the lobby doors are. He heaves in a great, gasping breath of air and sprints full-out down the corridor.  
  
Through two layers of sealed glass doors, Hongbin can see the parking structure behind the building, the distant streetlights and neon signs just beyond.  
  
This door simply opens as he approaches. It’s almost surprising, how easy it is to get out after all of that.  
  
He runs down the alley instead of going for the parking garage. He’s fairly sure that the effects of the explosion won’t spread that far, but it’s best to be safe. He goes for the empty street beyond, crosses the abandoned motorway and then bends over himself, hands on his knees, and attempts to catch his breath.  
  
Not a moment too soon; there’s a horrific bang, muffled but still loud, like a gun set off inside a house that he’s on the outside of. Hongbin turns just in time to see the cracks that have rent through most of the walls, to see the structure begin to fold in on itself.  
  
It just…crumbles. Slowly at first and then quicker and quicker as the supports give way, turning to little more than a giant pile of dirt and sinking into the hole made by the explosion, down into twenty basement levels on top of millions of dollars’ worth of equipment.  
Some part of him expected screaming. There isn’t any. There’s no sound at all, actually, after the rubble settles. The street is silent. Somewhere, far in the distance, Hongbin imagines he can hear a siren.  
  
A car drives up—not a police car or an ambulance or a firetruck, but Hakyeon in a sleek gray sedan, Taekwoon perched like a sentinel in the front seat, his eyes dark and blank as he stares at what’s left of the building where he was…created.  
  
“Hongbin, thank god,” Hakyeon sighs, rolling the window down. He’s not wearing a mask. That’s a good way to get himself dead. “We waited until we saw it start to fall and then we came looking for you. Are you okay? You look like you just ran a marathon.”  
  
Hongbin nods, somewhat blankly. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do now. “Elevator died,” he mumbles. “Had to take the stairs.”  
  
“The—god, Hongbin, you could have died,” Hakyeon protests, gaping.  
  
Hongbin looks him square in the eye and says, “I know.” He imagines that Hakyeon understands exactly what he means by that one short phrase. If anyone does, if anyone understands him that much besides Wonshik, it’s Hakyeon.  
  
“Get in the car,” Hakyeon says.  
  
Hongbin takes hold of the door handle and then stops. “Wait. Where’s Wonshik?”  
  
Hakyeon gets a look in his eyes that Hongbin can’t for the life of him decipher. It looks like pity or hurt or shame, or maybe none, or all three, and it can’t mean what Hongbin thinks it means because if it does, if that’s Hakyeon’s response to Hongbin’s question….  
  
“He said he was going to get out,” Hongbin whispers. “He said he was…was going to find some excuse to step out of the meeting and he was going to—“  
  
“He was never going to leave, Hongbin,” Hakyeon replies just as softly. “You know he felt responsible, you know he felt like he had to make up for what he’d done.”  
  
“Not by _dying!_ ” Hongbin yells. God, what an idiot. If he told Hongbin he loved him, if he insisted that Hongbin live, then he should be here. He should take responsibility for those actions too, damn it.  
  
He runs for the rubble, looks up at the huge pile of rock and rebar and crushed furniture and isn’t sure where to even start. To his left is what looks like one of the excessively ostentatious office chairs from the thirty-first floor and Hongbin goes for it, climbs over chunks of concrete flooring and pushes aside potted plants and bits of ventilation ducts and fucking coffee makers.  
  
“Hongbin!” Hakyeon’s voice yells, slightly muffled but close. A single glance tells Hongbin that he’s down at the very edge of the pile, wearing a mask now and shouting until he’s red in the face. “There’s nothing you can do! Even if he’s in there, the fall will have killed him.”  
  
“He’s a cyborg,” Hongbin shouts back. He shoves aside a smaller chunk of concrete, unearthing a large wooden desk that may have been Wonshik’s. He’s probably looking in the wrong place. Wonshik was probably in the conference room, not his office. “He might have survived it.”  
  
There’s crunching behind him, the sound of someone else shoving aside rubble. Hongbin doesn’t turn, just keeps doing what he’s doing, pushing things away until he finds a leather lounge chair, and then a familiar coffee table.  
  
“Hongbin!” Hakyeon shouts again. He’s getting closer, his shoes slip-sliding on dusty, uneven surfaces. When he’s close enough he lays a hand on Hongbin’s arm in an attempt to get him to stop. Softly, he says, “Even if his robotic parts are still functional, Hongbin, you have to know that everything that makes him human…well, there won’t be much left. He can’t have survived a fall like that, or the weight of all of this rubble collapsing on top of him. If…if the explosion itself didn’t kill him, then the aftermath did.”  
  
Hongbin grits his teeth, fights back the sob for as long as he can, but it’s futile in the end. It comes out ragged and broken and far too loud, and he cries, “He said he loved me, Hakyeon. He’s the reason I even fucking got out and then he goes and does this shit. He fucking…I actually fucking loved him. And it was stupid and irrational and I didn’t think I’d ever feel this way again after…after Youngji. But I do, and now he can’t be dead. He _can’t._ ”  
  
Hakyeon stares at him with wide eyes. His hand on Hongbin’s arm has gone slack, and Hongbin takes the opportunity to go back to digging.  
  
Taekwoon comes up behind him, lays a hand on Hongbin’s shoulder, and then addresses Hakyeon. “I would do the same for you,” he says. “If there was any chance that you were still alive, I would fight demons or swim across the sea or come back from the dead in order to save you.”  
  
Tears run down Hakyeon’s cheeks, suddenly and without warning. He wipes them away irritably, smearing gray concrete dust across his cheeks. “You’re so damn poetic at the worst times,” he tells Taekwoon wryly. “Fine, we’ll find him. But I…I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to save him, Hongbin. Or that he’ll be anything like he used to if I do.”  
  
“I know,” Hongbin says. He knows he’s already asking for a miracle. Putting it all on Hakyeon hardly seems fair.  
  
The distant wail of sirens starts up for real as they go back to digging. This district is primarily industrial, but it was only a matter of time before _someone_ noticed a thing as obvious as the collapse of an entire office building.  
  
Behind him and off to his left he can hear Taekwoon and Hakyeon shouting Wonshik’s name, but Hongbin can’t speak, can barely breathe through the tears that are flooding his throat.  
  
He makes the hitch of his breath in the smoggy air incentive to dig faster. He doesn’t know what’ll happen if Fire and Rescue show up before they find Wonshik, but he has a feeling that they won’t let him stay.  
  
“God, Wonshik,” he whispers, unvoiced, with barely a breath behind the words, “please, you have to be alive.”  
  
It gets him through shoving aside another hunk of cement, bracing his feet on shifting rubble, forcing his muscles to work harder. The hardware built into his arms makes him inhumanly strong, but he’s not a miracle. He can lift two or three times as much as another man of his size, but that does little in the face of a slab of concrete the size of a truck.  
  
Taekwoon comes over, jams his hands under the other side of the slab, and together they lift it as though it were a small table, setting it aside out of the way. The sirens are growing closer.  
  
“Wonshik!” Taekwoon calls again, pushing through the haphazard collection of office furniture that they’ve unearthed. There’s a large wooden thing near Taekwoon that might be a conference table.  
  
Hongbin feels his heart swell with hope. There’s very little chance…but he can’t help but think, maybe this is it, maybe they’ve found him.  
  
The sight of a bloodied hand, buried under smaller bits of concrete and crushed beneath a shattered LCD display, nearly forces Hongbin to his knees. He shoves forward instead, pushes the useless monitor away and prays that Wonshik is alive and feels the hope die as quickly as it came.  
  
He doesn’t know who this is, but it is not Wonshik. It must be one of the company directors, Hongbin thinks, based on what he can see of the man’s clothes—suit jacket, tie, cufflinks. One side of his face is crushed beyond recognition and he’s not breathing.  
  
Hongbin leaves him, goes back to digging.  
  
Taekwoon yells, “Wonshik!” again as he shoves a once-luxurious leather rolling chair out of his way.  
  
There’s a thump, and Hongbin thinks it’s the chair at first, the shifting rubble, his own heartbeat in his ears. But then it comes again, and again, rhythmic and repetitive. _Thump,_ and then three breaths, and then again _thump._ It’s coming from the table.  
  
Hongbin swallows thickly, clears his throat hard and then shouts, “Wonshik?” He waits for an answer with his heart beating in his temples and he nearly misses it, but there it is again, slightly louder this time: _thump._  
  
“Taekwoon,” Hongbin says, “Taekwoon, help me move this table.”  
  
Taekwoon comes at once, and together they lift it, so much easier than the cement slab but so much more careful.  
  
Hakyeon joins them, his voice choked as he says Hongbin’s name, and then Wonshik’s. He crouches down, directs them, “A little higher, okay, now move it towards Taekwoon.”  
  
As soon as he’s cleared them to set it down, Hongbin lets go and rushes to his side, falling to his knees.  
  
And fuck, Wonshik is there. He’s buried in tiny bits of concrete up to his thighs and he’s bleeding from who knows where and his right arm is bent at an impossible angle but he’s _there,_ whole and looking back at Hongbin. “Hey,” he mumbles.  
  
“Oh my god, you’re alive,” Hongbin responds.  
  
Hakyeon is checking Wonshik’s pulse, looking over his damaged arm. “How are your legs?” he asks.  
  
Wonshik grunts, says, “Fuckin’ hurts, but I’m gonna take that as a good sign.”  
  
Hakyeon gives him a slightly wild smile, still fingering the exposed bits of wiring in his arm. “Means you’re not paralyzed,” he says. “Which, considering I didn’t expect you to even survive that, is pretty damn good.”  
  
“Wonshik,” Hongbin says. His mouth fills with dust and smog and he has to stop to cough, feeling like he’s attempting to hack up his entire insides. “Fuck,” he mutters, “you’re alive.”  
  
Wonshik’s little grin is pained and barely there, but Hongbin will take it. “Somehow,” he says. He takes a deep breath, reaches out with his uninjured arm, and grasps Hongbin’s wrist where he’s propped himself up on the ground. “Got under the table at the last minute. Wasn’t sure….”  
  
“I know,” Hongbin replies. He doesn’t even know which question he’s answering. It doesn’t matter. “You fucker, you can’t just force me to live and then do this shit.”  
  
Wonshik chuckles, but it causes a wince to cross his face and he stops quickly. “Wasn’t sure it would work. Wasn’t sure you would care.”  
  
“Of course I—you think I don’t care?” Hongbin sputters. His cups his right hand around Wonshik’s head, dirt and blood and sweat and all, and says, “God, you’re an idiot.”  
  
Wonshik’s lips pull up again, a little hopeful, Hongbin thinks. “Yeah?” he says.  
  
Hongbin presses the lightest, gentlest kiss possible to Wonshik’s forehead. “Yeah,” he replies.  
  
“Sorry to interrupt,” Hakyeon interjects evenly, “but there are firemen on their way up to us and we need to get Wonshik dug out and presentable before that happens.”  
  
They have to scoop bits of rubble away from Wonshik’s legs until they’re exposed enough that they can very gently pull him out. After that Taekwoon’s jacket is appropriated to be used as a ‘splint’ for Wonshik’s arm and Hakyeon brushes carefully through the hair on the right side of Wonshik’s head to check for lacerations.  
  
Finally, they pull him into standing. His left leg can’t take any weight, but Hongbin tucks himself under his arm and leads him carefully across the rubble towards the car.  
  
Fire and Rescue try to stop them to ask questions, but Hakyeon pulls out his medical ID and waves at them to keep walking while he says, “I’m afraid this man is one of my patients. He has several very delicate health conditions and it’s in everyone’s best interests if I take him directly to my clinic.”  
  
One of the firemen snorts, and the other tries to reason with Hakyeon that, “The hospital will have better equipment and additional personnel. You’re welcome to go with him to ensure his care yourself.”  
  
Hakyeon shakes his head, one sharp movement, and says, “My clinic is well stocked and well staffed, and I have no need of the hospital’s facilities. I’m sure that law enforcement will want to talk to him later, and I guarantee that he will be available for any inquiries they might have. He shouldn’t be hard to find: Kim Wonshik, CFO of this company.” He waves his hand at the pile of rubble around them. “But at the moment, I would like to ensure that his injuries don’t send him into shock or cause a seizure, if you don’t mind _too terribly_.”  
  
The reasonable fireman nods and says, “Go on then. Sorry to delay you.”  
  
Hakyeon waltzes back up to them, practically dancing over jagged pieces of former building, and mutters, “Come on, let’s get in the car before they change their minds.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fic requests are still open until the end of February! See [this post](http://phantomflutist.tumblr.com/post/156951432080/fic-request-february) for more info.


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter, guys. Hopefully it closes up all the plotholes and answers any lingering questions you may have. The epilogue will be up next week at the usual time. Thank you guys so much for sticking with me; it means a lot.

 

Hongbin never noticed before how shitty the chairs in Hakyeon’s waiting room are. They’re stupid and plastic, and after three hours sitting in one he can attest to the fact that they are not comfortable by any definition of the word.  
  
These are the sorts of thoughts he’s had while waiting. Hakyeon is doing surgery, trying to save Wonshik’s hand again, and Taekwoon is in there with him, playing scrub nurse. Hongbin can only sit here and pray that Wonshik is okay.  
  
He tells himself that the injuries weren’t that severe. Wonshik was conscious and talking when Hongbin saw him last, and he might have a long recovery ahead of him between the reattaching of his arm and whatever damage there was to his leg but Hakyeon assured Hongbin that he was going to live.  
  
It still feels too much like that day over a decade ago, when he’d put Youngji in the car and driven her to the hospital and been forced to sit in a waiting room too much like this one for hours on end before they would let him see her. And in the end, after all that waiting and praying and hoping, he’d been allowed in the room for the express reason of being at his wife’s side in her final moments.  
  
He can’t do that again. He doesn’t know what this thing between them is yet, but he wants the opportunity to find out. He needs to know that Wonshik was telling him the truth. He needs to see where else they can go from here.  
  
Finally, _finally_ the door opens and Taekwoon stands there, his hand on the doorknob as he gazes impassively at Hongbin. “He’s alright,” he says.  
  
Hongbin is up on his feet before he has time to make a conscious decision. “Can I see him?”  
  
Wordlessly, Taekwoon steps out of the way and waves Hongbin into the office.  
  
He feels like it should look different, this place with Wonshik in it. But it’s the same room as always, only the tiniest bit jarring because Wonshik is in the chair instead of Hongbin.  
  
Hakyeon looks up as Hongbin enters. He’s standing at the sink on the far side of the room, washing his hands. When he sees Hongbin he says, “He might be a little out of it, since we gave him a pretty big dose of pain medication.” He dries his hands and comes over to lay one on Hongbin’s shoulder. “He’s fine though. Just be careful.”  
  
Hongbin doesn’t know what the warning means, really. Be careful with Wonshik’s broken body or with his own emotions? He’s not sure it matters, because either way he can’t seem to move now that he’s seen Wonshik, reclined in the exam chair with his eyes half-lidded.  
  
Wonshik is staring right back at him. His right arm is wrapped in bandages, and his left leg is propped up in a splint. There are other, smaller bandages taped to him here and there, covering more minor cuts. His whole body seems to be one big bruise.  
  
“Hey,” he mumbles.  
  
Hongbin startles at the sound of his voice and automatically takes a step backward. The door is shut behind him and he doesn’t remember it happening, or even Hakyeon leaving. He forces a breath into his lungs and then replies, “Hey.”  
  
Looking sleepy, Wonshik says, “Are you just gonna hang out over there, or…?”  
  
Hongbin takes another deep breath and pushes himself off the door, taking one step and then another until he’s beside the chair. Wonshik’s injured arm is lying just in front of him. He doesn’t dare touch it, almost doesn’t dare get too close for fear of ruining all of Hakyeon’s hard work. “We have a lot to talk about,” he says.  
  
Moving his head in a gesture that might be a nod on a better day, Wonshik agrees, “We do.”  
  
“You lied to me. A lot.”  
  
“I know,” Wonshik mumbles. “I’m sorry. I know I fucked up. If I’d trusted you from the beginning then maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”  
  
Hongbin makes a decision, skirts around the exam chair to pull Hakyeon’s stool up with his foot and plunks down on it so that he can take Wonshik’s uninjured left hand in both of his. “Or maybe we never would have found each other,” he says.  
  
Wonshik turns his head a little, to meet Hongbin’s eyes as he smiles at him. “Maybe,” he says.  
  
Hongbin brings Wonshik’s hand to his mouth and ghosts a kiss over his knuckles, and it suddenly hits him—this kiss, just the barest of contact, is still more solid and real than the kiss that he shared with Youngji, back in his lab. She really was just a figment of his imagination.  
  
They sit in silence for a while, Wonshik still with a goofy little smile on his face that Hongbin thinks he can only half blame on the pain meds. It’s hard not to smile back in the same way.  
  
“So what happens now?” Hongbin asks at last.  
  
Wonshik takes a moment to respond, his eyes drooping low on every blink. “You know, there are some places in the countryside where the air is still mostly clean. I’ve always thought that maybe someday I would live there, surround myself with trees and grow my own food and maybe adopt a few kids.”  
  
“You would hate that,” Hongbin says. He doesn’t exactly know how he knows it, but the way Wonshik laughs in response tells him that he’s right.  
  
“You’re right,” Wonshik says. “I like the city too much. Even if the air is shit, there’s something about the bustle of people and the gathering of all that knowledge and technology. I want to live in the midst of it.”  
  
“Then we will,” Hongbin promises. “Someday, we will.”  
  
There’s so much more to talk about, but now isn’t the time. They’ll have to sort through which of Wonshik’s words were truth and which were lies. They’ll have to learn more about each other. They’ll have to deal with law enforcement regarding the company that they blew up.  
  
But Hongbin thinks that maybe, maybe if they’re together through it all, that’ll make it easier. Maybe nothing will be as hard if he’s got Wonshik to rely on too, instead of having to do everything on his own.  
  
He hasn’t felt this way about anyone since his wife died. And for Hongbin, that’s reason enough to keep trying.  
  
\---  
  
“I don’t fucking know,” Wonshik says. It’s been his response to most of the cop’s questions, and it seems to be no more amusing to him than the first five times. Hongbin fights a snicker and thinks, _wait until he gets to me._  
  
“Well, what _do_ you know?” the cop asks, brandishing his stylus like it’s a weapon.  
  
Wonshik shrugs and says, “Look, I’m not the one who called an emergency board meeting at four in the morning.” Hongbin fights another inappropriate giggle. “I was just doing my job. Why am I a suspect just because I’m the only one who survived a _building imploding around me_?”  
  
The cop doesn’t have many more questions after that, and Hongbin doesn’t blame him. It’s not like either of them are _properly_ suspects—if they were, this would be happening separately in an interrogation room rather than together in the wide bank of desks in the middle of the police station. No one really thinks either of them is guilty of anything.  
  
“Mr. Lee,” the cop says, turning to Hongbin next. He’s looking down at his tablet as he speaks, but glances up suddenly and then back down, his eyebrows dancing up towards his hairline. “You’re forty-five?”  
  
“Plastic surgery,” Hongbin says with a straight face, letting his eyes focus on the cop with as much intensity as he can muster.  
  
Blustering, the cop says, “Right, of course, sorry,” and moves on. “Why were you at JF Industries when the building collapsed?”  
  
Hongbin leans back, makes himself seem as casual as possible. “I wasn’t there when it collapsed. I got there right after,” he lies.  
  
The cop shakes his head. “But _why_ were you there, Mr. Lee?”  
  
“Oh,” Hongbin says, shrugging one shoulder, fighting the urge to giggle again because he can see a minute tremor in Wonshik’s shoulders that means he’s doing the same thing. “I work there, as an engineer.”  
  
“And you were coming to work at four in the morning?”  
  
Another shrug. Wonshik makes a strangled coughing noise and Hongbin subtly nudges him with an elbow under the guise of shifting in his chair. “I had an idea,” he says.  
  
The cops are basically forced to let them go after their interviews, because in spite of the oddity of their statements there’s no proof that either of them did anything illegal. It’s part of the reason that Hongbin wiped the company’s servers. There are definitely signs of foul play, but none that trace back to them.  
  
“They’ll probably decide that the building wasn’t structurally sound and drop the case,” Wonshik says once they’re back on the street and far enough from the police station that they’re not likely to be overheard. “It’s easier than trying to find other suspects and to be honest, no one is gonna be sad that that place is gone.”  
  
“You’ll have to get a new job,” Hongbin points out, but it just makes Wonshik snort and start swinging their linked hands back and forth. His fingers are strong between Hongbin’s, and that in itself is a comfort.  
  
“That was never really my job,” Wonshik says, “and I’ll be glad to go do something else. Maybe I’ll actually use my programming skills for something good.”  
  
Hongbin squeezes Wonshik’s hand and finds that he doesn’t mind the swinging overmuch, even though they’re both grown-ass men. “Maybe I’ll go back to building bots that don’t have faces,” he muses. And yeah, that sounds really good.  
  
Wonshik pulls him to the side, right in the middle of the street, and kisses Hongbin through the mask on his face. It’s cheesy and makes Hongbin wrinkle his nose, but he pulls down the mask and gives Wonshik a proper kiss before tugging it back into place and dragging Wonshik down the street. He catches himself moving too quickly and slows his step a beat or two, compensating for the boot that Wonshik still wears on his left leg.  
  
“Come on,” he says, “let’s go home before we get arrested for public indecency.”  
  
And Wonshik only freezes at the statement for a second before he’s wrapping his arm around Hongbin’s waist and urging him to walk faster, eager for what’s been implied.  
  
Hongbin only laughs and lets him.

 


	33. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end. Thank you thank you thank you a million times over to everyone who read this, who left kudos, who stuck with me throughout the long duration of this fic and the hiatus right in the middle. And especially thank you to everyone who left comments and sent me messages on social media. I didn't always respond to them but I appreciated every single one. This fic was an epic journey for me in so many ways, and you guys made it so much easier to keep going.

 

  
There’s an insistent pinging behind him, and Hongbin doesn’t hear it at first over the sound of the welder. But eventually he realizes that it’s trying to notify him of a video call, so he sets down his tools, shoves his rolling chair backwards with a toe against the floor and twirls around just as he reaches the desk on the other side of his small workroom.  
  
The computer is flashing deep purple at him, and Hakyeon’s name scrolls across it in curly silver font. Hongbin taps it once and watches Hakyeon’s face fade into view. He’s scowling, a deep furrow in the space between his eyebrows.  
  
“Yah,” Hakyeon snaps. “It’s been like three months. Where the hell have you been?”  
  
There are soft noises just outside the open workroom door, socked feet over laminate flooring, and Hongbin smiles a little in spite of himself.  
  
Hakyeon’s fuming increases, and he leans closer to the camera and fairly growls, “What the hell are you smiling at, you brat. You could break down any minute and I wouldn’t get there in time to fix you.”  
  
Arms wrap around Hongbin’s shoulders from behind and lips press briefly against his neck. Wonshik says, “Sorry, Hakyeon, it’s my fault. He’s been a little…preoccupied.” Hongbin doesn’t need to check the tiny window in the corner of his computer screen to know that Wonshik’s smile is downright lecherous.  
  
Hakyeon squawks in protest, complaining about oversharing. “Do not ever do that to me again, Kim Wonshik,” he says.  
  
“It’s Lee now, actually,” Wonshik corrects.  
  
Hongbin feels himself blushing and can’t help it, even as Hakyeon blinks at them.  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
Wonshik nuzzles into Hongbin’s neck as he lifts his left hand and wiggles his fingers. A silver band gleams on his third finger, and he says, “I took Hongbin’s name. I was tired of being a Kim.”  
  
“OH MY GOD!” Hakyeon shouts, and then suddenly he’s gone. Hongbin can still hear him somewhere in the background, screaming at Taekwoon that ‘they fucking got married and didn’t invite us to the _fucking_ wedding’.  
  
Hongbin snickers. Wonshik starts kissing his neck, working his way lower and tugging at the shoulder of Hongbin’s sweater (the blue one with the flecks of white) to get at more skin.  
  
Hakyeon returns as abruptly as he left, red-faced and panting hard. Taekwoon comes up behind him and nearly gets hit in the face when Hakyeon flails in a poorly-thought-out attempt at defending himself from what Wonshik is doing on the other side of the monitor.  
  
Hongbin swats at Wonshik’s hand as it tries to dip down inside the collar of his sweater and orders, “Behave.”  
  
Pouting, Wonshik backs up, just a bit.  
  
“Oh my god, never do that to me again,” Hakyeon demands. He follows this with a long series of hacking coughs, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket to press over his mouth.  
  
Hongbin’s mood drops immediately. He recognizes that cough—he’s pretty sure that everyone does. “Hakyeon?” he says softly.  
  
Hakyeon takes a slow breath and puts the handkerchief away. Hongbin catches a flash of red and hopes to god that he hallucinated it. “I may have called for slightly more than just to nag,” he admits.  
  
Wonshik has gone still and serious behind Hongbin, and he murmurs, “You’re sick.” It’s not a question.  
  
Hakyeon nods, and behind him Taekwoon puts his hands on Hakyeon’s shoulders and squeezes once, a movement that looks mostly involuntary. “I knew it would happen eventually.” He shrugs, then reaches for one of Taekwoon’s hands and covers it with his own. “It’s okay. I’ve always had a plan, for when this happens.”  
  
Hongbin doesn’t have to ask to understand what Hakyeon is trying to tell them, but he does anyway. “A plan?”  
  
“I have someone who can do the work. I might be the best robotic surgeon out there but I’m not the only one. And Ken’s training has been going well,” Hakyeon replies.  
  
“Ken?” Hongbin’s eyebrows go up of their own accord. “You’re going to let that _kid_ operate on you?”  
  
Hakyeon’s answering chuckle is surprisingly calm, surprisingly collected. “He learns fast. I’ve been training him for almost four years; he knows nearly as much as I do.”  
  
Wonshik’s arms tighten around Hongbin’s shoulders and he asks, “How close is ‘nearly’?”  
  
Hakyeon snorts at the question and waves it away with one hand like it’s a fly. “He’s ready,” he insists. “And I didn’t call to ask your opinions. I just thought you guys should know. Sorry to ruin your honeymoon.”  
  
“It’s been two months,” Hongbin tells him. “We can deal.” Wonshik’s wandering hands say differently, but Hongbin smacks them again and they quiet. “Is there anything that we can do?”  
  
“Come in for an appointment in the next few days, both of you. My surgery’s next week and the recovery will take time. I want to make sure all of my patients are good to go before then. Not that I don’t trust Ken, but….”  
  
“You’re a control freak and a perfectionist,” Taekwoon finishes for him. One of his fingers trails up Hakyeon’s neck, stroking very, very lightly.  
  
“That,” Hakyeon agrees.  
  
“Yeah, of course,” Hongbin says. “And just…let us know if there’s anything we can help with, okay?”  
  
Hakyeon nods and pats Taekwoon’s hand again. “Thanks, Hongbin. But I’ll be alright. I’ve got Taekwoon.”  
  
“I know you do,” Hongbin says, and can’t help the slight swell of joy that he was able to help make that happen. He helped Taekwoon find Hakyeon again.  
  
At the end of the call, when Wonshik is beginning to get antsy behind Hongbin, Hakyeon says, “Congratulations, by the way. I’m really happy for you guys.”  
  
Hongbin is pretty damn happy too. He waves goodbye to their friends and lets Hakyeon disconnect the call. As soon as the screen has gone black, his chair turns and Wonshik leans down for a kiss.  
  
Hongbin melts into it, rests his hands on Wonshik’s hips and enjoys that Wonshik is here and warm and his.  
  
“You’re done working, right?” Wonshik asks, pulling away just slightly.  
  
“Actually,” Hongbin says, “I’d barely gotten started when—“  
  
Wonshik kisses him again to cut him off, and then pulls him up from his chair. “You’re done working,” he says again.  
  
“Fine,” Hongbin laughs, letting Wonshik pull him from the room.  
  
As Wonshik walks backward down the hall ahead of him, Hongbin can’t help glancing to his left, into the empty bedroom next to his workshop. Well, empty except for a rocking chair and a basket of tiny hand-knit hats. _Someday,_ he tells himself, and returns his attention to his husband’s mischievous little smirk.  
  
His husband. Hongbin kind of still can’t believe it. But Wonshik’s hands are hot on his skin as they slip beneath Hongbin’s sweater, and he’s warm and solid under him as he pulls Hongbin down onto their bed. His stupid plastic-framed glasses poke Hongbin in the cheek as they kiss and he discards them impatiently.  
  
“Tell me again?” Wonshik asks, dark eyes wide, chest heaving.  
  
Hongbin knows what he’s asking, and he presses fluttery little kisses across Wonshik’s cheek so that he can breathe right in Wonshik’s ear, “I love you.”  
  
Wonshik’s breath stutters and he clutches Hongbin’s face in both hands to pull him in for more kisses. A noise suspiciously like a sob hitches in his throat and nearly gets lost between their mouths, and Hongbin swallows it and strokes over Wonshik’s face, through his hair with gentle fingers.  
  
“I love you,” Hongbin says again as he lifts himself up to shed his sweater, soft material catching on his chin and ruffling his hair. Wonshik’s hands can’t seem to decide where to go, and they hesitate between the button of Hongbin’s jeans and the slope of his collarbone for too long.  
  
“I love you,” he repeats as he pops the button himself, slides his hands over Wonshik to get him similarly undressed, presses kisses to Wonshik’s chin and his neck and the planes of his chest.  
  
And “I love you,” Wonshik whispers back when they’re both naked and Hongbin is pressing two fingers inside him, wet slide and gentle pressure.  
  
“I love you,” Hongbin says, they both say, as they move together. It’s more than the pleasure; it’s the connection. Hongbin never experiences the world as so solid and real as when he and Wonshik are locked together in this way. It’s gripping fingers into solid muscle and the feel of wiring and metal rods underneath. It’s fingers in the dark hair on the right side of Wonshik’s head and the solidity of steel just beneath his scalp.  
  
Their hands lock together above Wonshik’s head, fingers intertwined. Hongbin feels the press of Wonshik’s ring against his fingers and knows that Wonshik can feel the answering pressure of Hongbin’s against his own.  
  
Wonshik comes with his teeth sunken into the meaty part of Hongbin’s shoulder, and Hongbin follows him with “I love you,” on his lips.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you again to everyone who made it this far. You guys were my cheerleaders. Feel free to follow me on [tumblr](http://phantomflutist.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/PhantomFlutist) for updates about future projects!


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